GEM THIEVES IN SWITCHEROO

'120 GRAND' CENTRAL CAPER

 

Last updated: 3:43 am
July 25, 2009
Posted: 3:42 am
July 25, 2009

NY Post

The timing was perfect -- perhaps a little too perfect.

In an elaborate heist, three crafty crooks made off with a duffel bag stuffed with $120,000 in baubles by duping two jewelry salesmen in the Grand Central Terminal food court, MTA police said yesterday.

The ruse involved one con man following a salesman for hours on the day of the crime, tailing him for miles on his regular route from Chinatown to Midtown.

Once at Grand Central, the thieves used two distractions to swap one of the jewel-laden bags with one of equal heft and appearance.

An inside job has not been ruled out, with police still baffled a month after the June 24 caper.

"The three that did this were obviously well planned, and it was well thought out, and it was pretty well followed through on," said MTA Police Detective Michael Alfalla, whose agency released surveillance footage of the prime suspect.

Cops have not ruled out the possibility that one or both of the salesmen, who worked for jewelry wholesaler My Oro USA, were in on the scheme.

The goods were poorly guarded and somehow the thieves knew the exact weight of the bags.

"It is being investigated as suspicious. I have rarely seen something played out like that," Alfalla said.

Police questioned the salesmen but said their stories were consistent with witness accounts.

The two merchants were both lugging black bags loaded with 800 items, including gold and diamond rings, necklaces, bracelets and earrings -- all of them inscribed with the initials "MO" -- and $2,000 in cash.

At the end of their shift, they stopped for a food-court meal. One salesman got up to throw away trash and asked his partner to watch his bag.

When he got to the nearby can, a man suddenly took what looked like an accidental spill right in front of him and asked if the salesman could help him up.

At the same time, a second con man tapped the seated jeweler on the shoulder and told him he'd dropped $10 on the floor -- a bill the thief had placed there seconds earlier.

With the salesmen distracted, a third crook switched one of the bags with the near-identical phony.