Never too late: Cops crack 25-year-old clock theft
It took time, but Israeli police detectives have cracked one of the country's greatest crimes — the legendary heist of a priceless clock collection from a Jerusalem museum a quarter century ago.
The 1983 theft, the costliest in Israel's history, saw 106 timepieces worth millions of dollars disappear from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art. Among them was a pocket watch made for French queen Marie Antoinette that museum officials value at more than $30 million.
Although the stolen clocks had no connection to Islamic culture, they were displayed in the museum because they had originally belonged to the father of the museum's founder.
The heist baffled police for more than two decades. But detectives now blame Naaman Diller — a notorious Israeli thief who fled to Europe and died in the United States in 2004.
Investigators got their first break two years ago, when the museum informed them it paid some $40,000 to an anonymous American woman to buy back 40 of the items, including the Marie Antoinette timepiece made by famed watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet.
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The 1983 theft, the costliest in Israel's history, saw 106 timepieces worth millions of dollars disappear from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art. Among them was a pocket watch made for French queen Marie Antoinette that museum officials value at more than $30 million.
Although the stolen clocks had no connection to Islamic culture, they were displayed in the museum because they had originally belonged to the father of the museum's founder.
The heist baffled police for more than two decades. But detectives now blame Naaman Diller — a notorious Israeli thief who fled to Europe and died in the United States in 2004.
Investigators got their first break two years ago, when the museum informed them it paid some $40,000 to an anonymous American woman to buy back 40 of the items, including the Marie Antoinette timepiece made by famed watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet.