NY Jewelers ‘Stolen’ Diamonds Accidentally Thrown Out in the Trash

(IDEX Online News) – A jeweler who alleged that goods worth up to $10 million had been stolen from an unlocked safe at his Midtown business has learnt the truth of what happened to his diamonds – they had been thrown away.  

According to the New York Post, workers at J. Birnbach Inc. were helping their boss, Jonathan Birnbaum, move goods to a different floor and managed to throw out three wooden boxes containing nearly $5 million in diamonds.

Their carelessness did not go unnoticed. A building security guard looked into the boxes and decided to make the most of his serendipitous discovery by selling some of the haul to a jeweler in the same building.

The guard, named by the paper as Wilfred Martinez, kept a 17-carat diamond, worth some $3.2 million for himself.

The mystery was solved when the police, who had been called in to investigate the alleged theft from the safe, reviewed surveillance footage from November 24 and saw the security guard take the boxes.

Martinez has been charged with criminal possession of stolen property. He has returned the 17-carat stone, two smaller diamonds and $10,000 in cash.

Authorities are working to track down the other stones.