PARIS(AP) – The mayor of Kiev's daughter told police she was robbed of euro4 million ($5.5 million) worth of jewelry as she traveled by car from Charles de Gaulle airport to the French capital, Paris police said Tuesday.

A spokesman for her wealthy father, however, immediately denied the report, which could be embarrassing considering that his daughter heads a charity organization funded by his own city government and many Ukrainians are struggling amid a widespread recession.
A Paris police official said Kristina Chernovetska reported that a man broke into her luxury car Monday as it stopped on a highway north of Paris, then stole her purse.
Chernovetska reported the incident to authorities and said the purse contained the valuable rings and earrings, the official said. The official was not authorized to be named according to police policy and gave no further description of the jewelry.
A spokesman for Kiev mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, however, denied that there was a robbery.
“This is somebody's bad joke. We completely deny these reporters about a robbery. There was no robbery,” spokeswoman Marta Hrymska said.
Chernovetsky was one of the first banking magnates in Ukraine after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and sold his Pravex Bank for euro493 million to Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo in June 2008.