The Pink Panthers: hunting the world's best diamond thieves | UK news | The Observer: I asked people I met in the region what they thought of the gang. And while almost everyone acknowledged that stealing was wrong, the statement was usually followed by a glint in the eye and a sentiment along the lines of: "You have to admit they are good at it."
One man in a marketplace became passionate: "If I was the government, I would encourage the Panthers to go and hit all the foreign jewellers, under one condition: that they bring the booty home!" He saw the robberies as revenge for the Nato bombings and UN sanctions of Serbia in the 1990s – "England, America, France, Japan… they ruined this country."