William Thomas Cain/Newsmakers
Plenty of movies have framed jewel thieves as master criminals who go to great lengths to plan an elaborate heist in an attempt to pull off the perfect crime. However, they tend to be a bit less elegant in real life, which was the case with a robbery that led to a man being arrested for trying to swipe a pricy pendant by swallowing it.
Rich people have spent millennia figuring out ways to flex their wealth, and in the 19th century, a jewelry designer in Russia gave some elites with more money than they could ever know what to do with a new outlet with the ornate trinkets known as Fabergé eggs.
The majority of what are essentially the most expensive Easter eggs ever made were produced for two Russian tsars who commissioned 50 “Imperial eggs” crafted from precious metals and decorated with valuable jewels and gemstones. One of them, the “Winter Egg,” recently set a record when it was auctioned off for $30 million, and Fabergé has capitalized on their prestige with other offerings that are by no means a bargain but will still set you back significantly less.
That includes some pendants that were inspired by a James Bond movie, and a man in New Zealand ended up in jail after he was caught trying to steal one by throwing it down his gullet.
A thief was charged with attempting to steal a Fabergé pendant by swallowing it
A Fabergé egg is a central plot point in the 1983 James Bond movie Octopussy, and the jeweler decided to pay homage to the film by producing a pendant that will set you back over $20,000.
One of those pendants ended up at a jewelry store in Auckland, New Zealand, and according to The Guardian, it ended up at the center of an ill-fated heist on November 28th courtesy of a man who strolled into Partridge Jewelers and was arrested just a few minutes after he swallowed it.
That pendant, which is covered in 62 diamonds, 15 sapphires, and made from 18-karat gold, was valued at $19,200, and police had not been able to recover it by the time the unnamed 32-year-old suspect appeared in court the day after his arrest (an inspector noted “an officer is assigned to constantly monitor the man” while waiting for nature to take its course).
The alleged thief had previously been charged with stealing an iPad from the same store a couple of weeks before getting a bit more ambitious. Barring a borderline dangerous case of constipation, it seems safe to assume the pendant will be recovered by the time he appears in court for a second time on December 8th.