An executive at Tiffany & Co. (TIF) allegedly stole $1.3 million worth of jewelry from the company. How did she do it?
Very slowly, it seems. Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun, 46, worked as the vice president of product development at the jewelers Midtown Manhattan headquarters from January 2011 to February of this year, when her position was terminated due to downsizing. The F.B.I. claims that between November 2012 and her dismissal, 165 pieces of jewelry went poof, including diamond bracelets, platinum, or gold diamond drop and hoop earrings, platinum diamond rings, and platinum and diamond pendants. Lederhaas-Okun, authorities say, would check out the jewelry for professional reasonsmarketing purposes, showing potential buyers, and so forthand then not return them.
She was careful to only keep items that were valued at under $10,000, says Scott Selby, the co-author of Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History. Tiffanys has a policy of only investigating missing inventory thats valued over $25,000. Thats what enabled her to do this; it was slow and systematic. Lederhaas-Okun has since been charged by the F.B.I. with wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property and she faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted. Carson Glover, a spokesperson for Tiffanys, says the company is not in a position to comment at this time.
What did she do with her millions in stolen Tiffanys jewelry?
The details are still coming together, but according to the Feds, she sold the merchandize to an unnamed leading international buyer and reseller of jewelry with an office in midtown Manhattan. Ice-T (né Tracy Marrow), the longtime rapper, actor, and former professional jewel thief, suspects that Lederhaas-Okun may have had a buyer in advance. When you steal things in that kind of quantity, thats what we call consignment theft, he says. You dont just put it on the fence and hope somebody picks it up. Everything is bought and paid for long before you steal it.
Selby thinks the arrangement may have been less nefarious. Manhattan, he says, is filled with pawn shops for rich people, auction houses like Christies or Sothebys (BID). If you show up at Christies with a Grecian vase worth two million dollars, and youre in a nice suit and you give them an address thats in a nice neighborhood in Connecticut, they wont ask any questionsor at the most, perfunctory questions, says Selby. Neither Christies nor Sothebys responded to requests for comment.
How did Lederhaas-Okun finally get caught?
Tiffanys discovered that the jewelry was missing when it conducted a company-wide inventory review, and e-mails between Lederhaas-Okun and the unnamed jewelry reseller were found on her computer. At first, Lederhaas-Okun claimed all jewelry had been checked out for a PowerPoint presentation for her supervisor. (The supervisor denied this.) Lederhaas-Okun later said that the missing jewels could be found, according to the Feds, in a white envelope in her office. Searches turned up nothing.
Chris E. McGoey, a Los Angeles-based security advisor, believes that other employees at Tiffanys may have had suspicions long before the investigation, but were afraid to speak up. I guarantee you that a company like Tiffanys has checks and balances, he says. But it didnt apply to [Lederhaas-Okun.] People reported to her, and they had to relinquish their inventory to her, based on her say-so. Even if they had concerns about why the jewelry she was checking out wasnt being returned, he says, they mightve been reluctant to raise any red flags. Nobody wants to rat out their boss, he says.
There seems to be a spate of jewelry thefts of late. Is this part of a larger trend?
Actually, yes. The first big jewelry theft of this year occurred at the Cannes Film Festival in May, when $1.4 million worth of jewelry was taken from the hotel room of an employee of Chopard, the Swiss jeweler. (The thieves apparently walked off with an entire safe.) The second robbery occurred a week later at another hotel, during a star-studded party to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Swiss luxury jeweler De Grisogono. There, despite 80 security guards at the event, thieves walked off with a diamond necklace worth $2.6 million. The jewelry in both cases remains missing, and there are currently no suspects.
Selby, whos written extensively about the famous $50 million Antwerp Diamond Heist of 2003 (regarded as the largest diamond heist ever), thinks most of the clues point to an inside job. How did the thieves know the jewelry exec would store her jewels in the room safe? he asks. How did they get in and out of the room without the magnetic lock recording them? An insider, especially one high up in the company, had the most opportunity to do something like this and get away with it.
What can a thief possibly do with highly-publicized jewelry?
There are many options besides Manhattan auction houses. According to Selby, they could have melted down the precious metals, or removed the diamonds from their settings and sold them loose. Or they could put them away for a while, he says. Wait for the heat to die down, and then try selling them quietly someplace like Dubai or Hong Kong. Neither Chopard nor De Grisogono seem particularly worried about the stolen property. De Grisogonos founder and creative designer Fawaz Gurosi said in a statement, These incidents are rare; it is actually the first time it has happened in our 20-year history. Caroline Scheufele, Chopards co-president, told a reporter at the time, We have plenty of insurance. Its great publicity. Its no big deal.
