The importance of security and at least feeling safe at home is something that we all think about, but when one is famous it might be an even bigger concern. While anyone’s home can be broken into, celebrities are known for spending thousands on private security and top-of-the-line systems to keep their homes safe, but even with that, numerous celebs like Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, and Nicole Kidman have recently seen their property burglarized, and a security expert has given a mind-boggling reason for it.
Why One Security Expert Says Celebrities Are Being Robbed So Often Right Now
There are a number of unfortunate reasons that famous people are targeted for crimes, but one that we see most often is that their celeb status usually means that their homes are filled with expensive goods. In fact, the recent shocking double murder of American Idol music supervisor Robin Kaye and her husband is thought to be due to the couple coming home and encountering a thief who was already inside.
The New York Post spoke with Bodyguard Group of Beverly Hills owner Kris Herzog to get an idea of why so many famous people are dealing with their houses being robbed right now, and his answer might shock you. Of the thieves, Herzog said:
They use signal jammers, which you can buy for a few thousand dollars. It jams the signal to your cameras, your alarm, your mobile phone. It all turns off, as if you were home and simply deactivated your alarm.
As you may have guessed, this would mean that fancy security systems immediately become useless, which is the main problem. However, the tactics and troubling details don’t stop there:
Then [the thieves] dress as gardeners and show up a few hours before or after the real gardeners. They enter through the same gate [as the legit gardeners] and load leaf-blower bags with your valuables. I’ve been told 50 or 60 of these signal-jammer gangs are active in LA and none of them have ever been caught.
Obviously, everyone will remember the horrible 2016 Paris robbery that Kim Kardashian (who recently returned to the city to testify at the trial) had to endure, but others have dealt with intruders being able to violate the privacy of their homes, which is something the Skims founder’s younger sister, Kendall Jenner has experienced more than once.
This June saw Brad Pitt’s home hit, with criminals climbing a fence and then ransacking the domicile. On Valentine’s Day, the house of Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban was broken into when an intruder broke a window to gain entry, and late 2024 saw the watches stolen from Keanu Reeves’ home the previous year found…in Chile.
While celebs are often jetting off to amazing locales for fun or work, this also means that they are away from home frequently, and leaving the protection of their valuables up to security systems doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. Apparently, a number of the “signal-jammer gangs” don’t even call the L.A. area home, but are from South America. The outlet notes that they enter the city as tourists but have pre-arranged home theft sprees, and can even steal items “to order.”
They then leave the country (having the items fenced by others) and local police usually have trouble with being able to identify them (even with fingerprints or DNA evidence), because they are from other countries. All of this has made security a lot more difficult for celebs, and Herzog believes that they are “easy targets” because “they make [bad] security decisions.” This is one reason he uses off-duty police officers to patrol his clients’ homes in uniform and “retired police cars” that still look like the real deal. He added:
Nobody is afraid of a security guard. But if there’s a police car sitting there? The bad guys say that they don’t want to get shot. And if the cop presses one button, there’s going to be 100 other cops from all different directions. Criminals don’t want to trade freedom or their lives for getting money out of a house.
So, it would seem that the best advice is to bank on real people being on hand to protect your property. Let’s hope that, at the very least, as many future crimes as possible can be stopped without tragedy striking and people getting hurt, or worse.
