LA thieves steal $2.5m worth of make-up

US make-up mogul Jeffree Star has revealed that $2.5m (£1.9m) of stock, including unreleased products, was stolen from his company’s warehouse.

Star shared details of the theft in a YouTube video posted on Wednesday.

In the clip he reveals it happened in the early hours of 16 March – alleging a team of “professionals” broke into the Los Angeles facility.

Star has said that local law enforcement and the FBI are investigating the crime.

The 33-year-old said he and investigators believe the products were stolen to be sold onto the black market.

Police have not yet commented publicly on the case.

Star revealed the crime after an unreleased concealer product, which had been under development for a year, began to appear on social media marketplace sites over the weekend.

Fans of the brand had expressed their confusion about the leak.

Born Jeffrey Lynn Steininger, the influencer launched his own beauty brand, Jeffree Star Cosmetics, in 2014.

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The internet personality has had a large online fan-base since the days of MySpace and currently has more than 14 million subscribers on YouTube.

Forbes magazine has said he is one of the highest-paid beauty vloggers in the world.

On the video “My Concealer Line Was Stolen & Leaked” posted on his YouTube channel on Wednesday, Star revealed details about the robbery at one of the company’s storage facilities.

He said “thousands” of products were taken and described watching CCTV footage of the crime as “gut-wrenching”.

Images of the alleged crime scene were obtained by US celebrity website TMZ and appear to show a hole was cut through the building’s roof.

The theft comes one year after thieves were said to have taken $4.5m worth of eyeshadow from an LA warehouse storing Anastasia Beverly Hills cosmetics.

The global beauty industry is worth hundreds of billions of dollars and officials are increasingly warning about the dangers of unregulated black market sales.

The FBI has previously warned consumers about counterfeit beauty products, which have been found to contain substances like arsenic that are hazardous to health.

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