Two men involved in a violent burglary of Manchester City’s Italy international goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma and his pregnant girlfriend at their home in Paris have been given prison sentences. Donnarumma was savagely beaten in the robbery while his then fiancee, now wife, Alessia Elefante, was choked with a cable and later suffered a miscarriage blamed on the trauma of the incident. Ilyas Kherbouch, 21, the mastermind of the burglary, was sentenced to nine years in prison and fined 80,000 euros ($93,000) by the Paris Criminal Court. Co-defendant Moktar D received a five-year prison sentence, with two years suspended subject to a probationary period.
A third defendant, Khyan M, whom prosecutors suspected of also orchestrating the robbery from his prison cell, was acquitted. The 27-year-old Donnarumma and his partner Elefante were bound and threatened at knifepoint during the terrifying ordeal in their luxury apartment on Avenue Montaigne in central Paris in July 2023, a court in the French capital heard. At the time of the burglary, the Italian international was playing for Paris Saint-Germain. He moved to Manchester City in 2025.
Prosecutors had requested prison sentences ranging from four to 10 years against the three men alleged to have orchestrated or participated in the violent burglary. The harshest sentence of 10 years had been sought for Kherbouch, alias “Ganito” – who gained notoriety following his brazen escape from Villepinte prison in Seine-Saint-Denis, north of Paris last March. Prosecutors requested sentences of nine years and six years respectively for Khyan M, 22, known as “Kiki”, who, like Kherbouch, had been suspected of having orchestrated the violent burglary from his prison cell, and Moktar D, one of the robbers. In the early hours of July 21, 2023, Donnarumma and his fiancee were dragged from their bed and held captive by four masked men who had broken into their luxury ninth-floor apartment via the rooftops.
Donnarumma was beaten with hard knuckle gloves until he bled. “The money, the watches!” their attackers roared. Elefante was choked with a phone charging cable, and the couple were separated and tied up. A seven-man gang – some of whom remain unidentified – made off in minutes with cash, jewellery, watches and luxury bags, whose worth the Italian footballer estimated at just less than one million euros ($1.1m). The exclusive Avenue Montaigne neighbourhood has been “targeted by an increasingly youthful criminal population”, the prosecutor noted during his closing arguments, listing seven celebrities who had fallen victim between 2022 and 2025.
It is a form of crime that is “highly lucrative” and “extremely violent”, targeting “its own idols”, the prosecution added. The second and final day of this high-profile trial unfolded calmly, with Kherbouch apologising to the police officers he had insulted on Thursday, as well as to the court. The two alleged masterminds behind the operation denied any involvement during questioning, despite messages and images recovered from phones they had been using while in custody. Moktar D, the only defendant present at the scene of the burglary, claimed he had merely acted as a lookout, positioned atop a building opposite the couple’s apartment.
His childhood friend, also implicated in the case and accused of being an informant, committed suicide in prison.
