Jewel Thieves Caught On Camera!
Mystery Couple Makes Off With $ 21,000 Diamond.
Evelyn Valdez has worked in Manhattan's Diamond District for 11 years and she has never seen this sleight of hand robbery before.
It happened back on August 29th. Evelyn says a young couple approached her booth and enquired about an e-color two karat diamond. They're known in the trade as a WS-1.
Evelyn's company didn't have that particular stone, so she showed them something else.
Evelyn says while she was showing them the diamond, she turned very quickly to grab a loop. It was just a second, but as she took her eyes off the diamond for that one split second, she says that's when the man switched the diamond and replaced it with a cubic zirconia.
The couple then offered to leave a $100 deposit to hold the stone, so Evelyn took their deposit and gave them a copy of the original certificate and then they left.
A few minutes later they discovered they had the wrong stone when her boss weighed the diamond, saying, "Evelyn , how can this be? This is a three karat!" Just minutes before showing the couple the diamond, Evelyn had weighed it as a two-karat stone.
Still thinking the mistake was theirs, they took out the diamond tester. That's when they realized the $ 21,000 diamond had been switched.
The names and phone numbers left by the couple turned out to be fake and when police tried to lift fingerprints from the glass case, they came up empty.
When cops couldn't turn up any suspects, Evelyn called Help Me Howard. She showed Howard their security video and showed him how the switch went down.
Looking at the video, Evelyn hands the alleged perpetrator the diamond...he takes it from her with his left hand. When Evelyn turns around, the diamond is in his left hand...with his right hand he takes the diamond off the holder and drops his right hand to his side. With his left hand he puts on the cubic zirconia. By the time Evelyn turned back, the switch had already been made.
Evelyn was so upset she says she spent two days in bed. "I feel terrible! I didn't eat...I kept crying!"
She says: "I want their faces up there and I want them caught, so nobody else has to go through what we've been through".
The owners of "Diamond Fantasies" are asking for the public's help to find these people and are offering a reward for any information that leads to an arrest and conviction. Anyone with any information is asked to call 1-800 Crimestoppers or 212-869-9303.
Comments: 6
excuse me channel 11 ima let you finish but channel 9 did it better.....Diamonds are Forever jajaja
Where is the video?
OMG that sucks! Where is the video; this pic is too blurry.
It's stupid that at this day & age, and with technology, that surveillance camera pictures are still so disgustingly grainy & blurry. It may be worth it sometimes to pay for something of higher quality just in case something like this happens.
The video is on the right side of the screen!
Howard, how brave and greatfull of you to try to help this jeweler. Small businesses have been struggling as is due to the major downturn of economy and when a professional thief steals one stone that could potentially be your profit for months it really stings! What a shame. I wonder what the chances are of police catching this thief and his accomplice. Thank you for making this incident evident to everyone - let's hope you can make a difference once again!