A New Zealand man has been charged for theft after he allegedly stole a diamond-studded locket in a rather unusual way—by swallowing it.
The ingested loot—a Fabergé egg locket valued at $19,300 (Sh2,497,000)—has not yet been recovered, police told local media outlets.
According to Wikipedia, a Fabergé egg is a jeweled egg first created by the jewelry firm House of Fabergé in Saint Petersburg, Russia. As many as 69 eggs were created during the Czarist era, of which 61 are currently known to have survived
Police were called to Partridge Jewellers in central Auckland last Friday afternoon, and the 32-year-old man was arrested in store minutes later. He has undergone a medical assessment and remains in custody, police say.
The allegedly stolen Fabergé egg is set with 60 white diamonds and 15 blue sapphires, according to the jeweller’s website, and opens to reveal an 18K gold miniature octopus.
The Octopussy egg, as it is named, was inspired by the 1983 James Bond film of the same name, which centres on an elaborate Fabergé egg heist.
Fabergé is a world-renowned jeweller founded in Russia more than two centuries ago, famous for its eggs made of gems and precious metals.
The suspect is due to appear in court again on 8 December.
According to reports, he has also been charged with allegedly stealing an iPad from the same jewellery store on 12 November and making away with cat litter and flea control products worth NZ$100 from a private address a day after.
The incident came seven days after a mother in New Zealand who killed her two children and hid their bodies in suitcases was sentenced to life in prison.
Hakyung Lee, who was found guilty in September of the shocking murders of eight-year-old Yuna Jo and six-year-old Minu Jo, has to spend at least 17 years behind bars before she is eligible for parole.
Lee, 45, argued she was insane at the time of the killings in 2018, which happened soon after her husband died. High Court judge Geoffrey Venning said Lee’s mental health played a part in the case, but that her actions were calculated.
The children’s remains were discovered only in 2022 by a couple who won an auction for the contents of an abandoned storage unit in Auckland.
During the trial lasting more than two weeks, Hakyung Lee’s defence lawyers told the court that her mental health deteriorated after Jo’s death, and that she came to believe it was best if the rest of the family died together.
Lee tried to kill herself and her children by giving them a dose of the antidepressant nortriptyline mixed in juice, but got the dose wrong and woke up to find her children were dead, her lawyers said.
Prosecutors argued that Lee’s was “a selfish act to free herself from the burden of parenting alone”.
After the killings, Lee changed her name and left New Zealand. She was arrested in South Korea—where she was born—in September 2022, and extradited back to New Zealand later that year.
In an emotional statement read out by prosecutors, Lee’s mother, Choon Ja Lee said she regretted not taking her daughter to a counsellor, noting that Lee had “no will to live” after Jo died of cancer in November 2017.
“If she wanted to die, why didn’t she die alone? Why did she take the innocent children with her?” Choon Ja Lee wrote, according to New Zealand media reported.
by BBC NEWS
