Islington (Parliament Politics Magazine) – Florez-Ortiz, 38-years-old, from Islington was part of a gang that stole over £2m of jewellery, targeting Hatton Garden, King’s Cross, and Portobello Road.
The victim was working in Brighton on January 18 of last year, flogging expensive jewelry valued at almost £2.25 million.
After he finished his business in Sussex, Edgar Ardila-Ruiz, Monica Diaz, and Edward Florez-Ortiz (posing as Victor Chavez-Gutierrez) followed him back to Kent. Florez-Ortiz punctured one of the tires when the victim stopped at a Wrotham gas station.
Before going to an air pressure machine, the sufferer had to wheel back after inadvertently driving off. When Diaz then showed up and attempted to talk to him, Arilda-Ruiz stole a bag of jewelry from the car’s boot while he was preoccupied.
Due to the victim’s distraction, Ardila-Ruiz gained entry to the car’s boot and took a bag that contained the jewelry. Then, in a silver Toyota Corolla, the three of them took off.
Following a failed effort to rob another traveling salesperson close to Bolton, Ruiz and Diaz were taken into custody on February 11. Then he saw a black BMW following him and dialed 999.
Police discovered Diaz had a matched image from the petrol garage CCTV once they arrived and apprehended the two.
At Maidstone Crown Court, Ardila-Ruiz, 38, and Diaz, 45, who do not have a known residence, entered guilty pleas. After entering a guilty plea to theft and criminal damage, Florez-Ortiz, 38, of Islington, London, was named as a third suspect and found guilty separately at Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court.
He also admitted unrelated offences linked to the theft of cash and jewellery from a woman in Colchester. All three were part of a larger gang responsible for similar offences across other parts of the country, in areas including Portobello Road, Hatton Garden and Kings Cross in London, and parts of Essex and Hertfordshire.
Detective Constable Leo Graham said:
“Our investigation uncovered a wealth of evidence showing how all three offenders initially followed the victim on foot, before tailing his car. They waited patiently for the perfect opportunity to prey upon him and a later examination of his car led to the recovery of a metal item which had been inserted into the tyre by Florez-Ortiz.
Ardila-Ruiz and Diaz were thankfully caught just weeks later, after following another salesman hundreds of miles away from Kent.’These sentences are welcome, as it is clear they were part of a bigger network of organised criminality targeting victims throughout the country.”
What sentences were handed to those convicted in these cases?
Individuals sentenced for major jewellery burglaries such as the Hatton Garden robbery and other significant jewellery burglaries received lengthy custodial sentences reflective of the seriousness of the crimes.
Although no exact length of sentence can be reported for the latest incident concerning the Islington man charged in 2025, in the past, similar jewellery burglaries in London have resulted in custodial sentences of 5 to 10 years or much more depending on the involvement of the parties, previous convictions and complexity of the burglary.
Multi-million-pound burglaries, such as Hatton Garden, generally result in sentences between 5 to 10 plus years based on the offending behaviour and role of the offenders, however, exact sentencing outcomes for the 2025 robbery are yet to be finalised by the courts.