A man who stole a handbag containing a Fabergé egg and watch set valued at £2.2m has been sent to prison for more than two years.
Enzo Conticello, 29, took the handbag belonging to Rosie Dawson as she stood in the smoking area of the Dog and Duck pub in Soho on 7 November 2024.
Inside the £1,600 Givenchy bag was an emerald-encrusted Fabergé egg and Fabergé watch, which belonged to Ms Dawson’s employers at the Craft Irish Whiskey Company.
There was also a £1,500 Apple laptop, Apple AirPods, a £350 store voucher, keys, Ms Dawson’s three bank cards, £200 worth of makeup, a Mulberry card holder worth £150, and £20 in cash inside the bag.
On Thursday, Southwark Crown Court heard that Conticello was after “easy money”, and he said he handed over the bag – complete with the Fabergé egg and watch – to buy drugs.
Recorder Kate Livesey sentenced him to two years and three months in prison, telling him the “opportunistic” theft had caused “inconvenience and stress” to Ms Dawson and her company.
“Ms Dawson described the particular shock and panic upon realising a bag containing items of such particular value owned by the company had been stolen, and the incredible stress this incident has caused her,” she said.
At a hearing in February, Conticello – also known as Hakin Boudjenoune – pleaded guilty to three charges of fraud by false representation and one count of theft.
He was linked to the handbag theft after trying to use Ms Dawson’s stolen bank cards in a nearby shop within minutes of committing the crime.
Prosecutor Julian Winship told the sentencing hearing: “On November 7 2024, at just before 10pm, [Ms Dawson] went to the Dog and Duck pub in Soho.
“She was outside the premises in the designated smoking area, she put her handbag on the ground in between her legs, and a few minutes later she noticed her handbag was no longer there.”
The court heard Ms Dawson had the Fabergé items in her handbag after she had taken them for display at a work event earlier that evening.
Mr Winship said Conticello “wanted to obtain some easy cash”, and prosecutors accept he did not intend to steal the Fabergé egg and accompanying watch.
Insurers have paid out £106,700 to the drinks company for the loss, but the prosecutor said there are only seven Fabergé sets – containing a jewelled egg, watch, cigars and humidor – in existence.
Three had been sold for between $2m and $3m, and the company was seeking similar amounts for the remaining four sets.
Conticello’s barrister, Katie Porter-Windley, told the court he previously worked as a chef but lost his job in the Covid pandemic and slipped into cocaine addiction.
“On the night in question, it was a moment of opportunity which he took, and he is genuinely remorseful for his behaviour,” she said.
“He gave the bag to someone to purchase drugs. He had a cocaine addiction at the time.”
Within minutes of her handbag being stolen, Ms Dawson received a fraud alert on her phone at 10.12pm, showing Conticello had tried to use one of her bank cards for a £33.48 purchase at a shop in nearby Berwick Street.
Two further attempts were made to use her cards, at 11.30pm and 12.30am, but they had already been cancelled by the banks.
“Early on Friday morning, the complainant received a message on social media from someone who had found her bank card on the ground between Soho and Charing Cross,” Mr Winship said.
Conticello was arrested for separate theft offences in Belfast in November 2025, more than a year after the handbag theft, and was then linked to the 2024 crime.
The court heard the Fabergé egg and watch have not been recovered, and Mr Winship said efforts to seek confiscation or compensation from Conticello will not be pursued.
“It appears to me unlikely that the defendant is a person of means able to satisfy either of these particular prosecutorial routes available to us,” said Mr Winship.
Ms Porter-Windley told the court that Conticello did not realise how valuable the items he had stolen were.
When the judge remarked the egg is “quite extraordinary looking”, with an emerald forming part of its exterior, the defence barrister replied: “It is so extraordinary that he wouldn’t know on the face of it whether that was high value or not.”
She said Conticello was homeless at the time, and he is currently a “man of no means”.
The judge said Conticello, of no fixed address, would ordinarily have been ordered to pay £3,000 in compensation to Ms Dawson, but she would not make the order as he has no way of paying it.
He is set to serve up to half the prison term before being released on licence.
