Stolen: Speedmaster "Rising Sun" Tokyo Olympics LE

[repoman]

Hi everyone, well it happened to me, I'm cross-posting from omegaforums, and just trying to spread the word to "be on the lookout"...

The watch was stolen from my home in Henderson Nevada on July 12 2022.

What to do if found:
If found, please contact me via DM here, and call the Henderson Nevada Police Department at (1)702-267-4555 and reference police report # 220720000423 and give them the information (you can also reference my full name as the reporting party, John Falkenthal).

Details:
I need to hold back a few details regarding the thief, and the initial local buyer as I'm still working with the police, but here's the relevant parts that I hope lead to recovering the watch out in the wild: First, this will be watch only no box/papers; the thief did not get the box and papers, I still have those. A Rising Sun for sale as "watch only" will be a rare sale indeed and should send up alarm bells. The thief sold the watch to a local "I buy watches" guy who advertises on Craigslist here in Henderson Nevada, that watch buyer confirmed to me he bought the watch the same day it was stolen, he subsequently flipped it in a trade a day or two later with a person in New York City, and shipped the watch out to that buyer. At least, that's what he claims. That lead is dead ended for now.... I can't say any more at this time. Assume the watch made it to NYC.

Watch Serial Number: 78850888
Limited edition number 1649 / 2020

I've registered this as a stolen watch on a couple of tracking sites, the police have a database of stolen watch serial numbers, but I don't know how far the reach of that is, probably only Clark County Nevada.

RisingSun78850888-10-4.jpg
Thank you all.
John

[Cdaddylutz]

Damn ��

[Carguy87]

So sorry your Omega was stolen

Watch Serial Number: 78850888
Limited edition number 1649 / 2020

I hope someday it’s recovered! Sorry to hear this happened to a fellow Nevadan!

[mquarter]

Originally Posted by repoman

Details:
The thief sold the watch to a local "I buy watches" guy who advertises on Craigslist here in Henderson Nevada, that watch buyer confirmed to me he bought the watch the same day it was stolen, he subsequently flipped it in a trade a day or two later with a person in New York City, and shipped the watch out to that buyer. At least, that's what he claims. That lead is dead ended for now.... I can't say any more at this time. Assume the watch made it to NYC.

Sorry to hear your watch was stolen. And yeah, this story is suss. The Tokyo models don't move that quickly these days.

[subgreen]

If the Guy shipped it to someone, he should have the address and payment information……and also the info from the guy he bought it from.

[colpol]

Originally Posted by subgreen

If the Guy shipped it to someone, he should have the address and payment information……and also the info from the guy he bought it from.

Hopefully the police follow the paper trail & you get it back.

[1William]

Sorry to hear. I hope it is recovered.

[subgreen]

Originally Posted by colpol

Hopefully the police follow the paper trail & you get it back.

I hope you get it back…..in 2004 I had several Rolex’s and Panerais stolen from a break-in. It took LE almost 1-hr to get there and they had enough time to drill the safe with a glass re-locker……..if it wasn’t for the hidden security video, they would of gotten away. The scum received no jail time for theft over $50k, just probation…..back in 2004, that was a lot of money…..it’s gut wrenching.

[gnuyork]

Noted, will be on the lookout.
Sorry this happened to you.

[gnuyork]

Originally Posted by subgreen

I hope you get it back…..in 2004 I had several Rolex’s and Panerais stolen from a break-in. It took LE almost 1-hr to get there and they had enough time to drill the safe with a glass re-locker……..if it wasn’t for the hidden security video, they would of gotten away. The scum received no jail time for theft over $50k, just probation…..back in 2004, that was a lot of money…..it’s gut wrenching.

That's absurd. A break-in and a theft???? If criminals only get probation for breaking and entering what's to stop them??? SMH.

[RW16610]

Oh man, I'm very sorry to hear this. Hoping it can be recovered and returned to you soon.

[nextlvltraders]

So sorry to hear that and I hope you're able to track it down.

[cjcarter134]

I do hope you get your watch back. The police should keep an eye on the "I buy watches" guy. I certainly hope the trail doesn't go cold in NYC. I wish you luck.

[repoman]

Originally Posted by cjcarter134

I do hope you get your watch back. The police should keep an eye on the "I buy watches" guy. I certainly hope the trail doesn't go cold in NYC. I wish you luck.

Thank you, and I agree, but getting local law enforcement to get off their rear ends and do anything has been a very large challenge. So far, I've done all the investigative work and handed everything to them on a silver platter. What's most frustrating is my belief that had they acted quickly, I'd probably already have my watch back.

[brandrea]

Sorry to hear John. Best of luck

[repoman]

I found it. Sold on Ebay June 23 2024. Seller calls himself WilliamsburgWatchesLLC on Ebay, Timepieces_NYC on Reddit and
"tpnyc2" on Instagram. Ebay link here: https://ebay.to/4d9eyqs

Working with law enforcement and Ebay Fraud department to retrieve my stolen watch. Frankly, I have very low expectations of success.

If anyone knows seller real identity, please DM me. Thank you.

[colpol]

Sorry to hear that

[hbbfam]

Very curious what ramifications there are to seller and ebay. I am guessing you settled an insurance claim. This is a thread worth watching. I had a beloved sentimental Explorer II stolen 2 yr ago. It sucks.

[brandrea]

Originally Posted by repoman

I found it. Sold on Ebay June 23 2024. Seller calls himself WilliamsburgWatchesLLC on Ebay, Timepieces_NYC on Reddit and
"tpnyc2" on Instagram. Ebay link here: https://ebay.to/4d9eyqs

Working with law enforcement and Ebay Fraud department to retrieve my stolen watch. Frankly, I have very low expectations of success.

If anyone knows seller real identity, please DM me. Thank you.

Interesting development…

I truly hope you are reunited

[samson66]

Originally Posted by repoman

I found it. Sold on Ebay June 23 2024. Seller calls himself WilliamsburgWatchesLLC on Ebay, Timepieces_NYC on Reddit and
"tpnyc2" on Instagram. Ebay link here: https://ebay.to/4d9eyqs

Working with law enforcement and Ebay Fraud department to retrieve my stolen watch. Frankly, I have very low expectations of success.

If anyone knows seller real identity, please DM me. Thank you.

Nice investigative work. I bet you will recover it.

[repoman]

No insurance claim ever made. My local police have already gathered evidence and will be issuing a subpoena to eBay for buyer and seller identity. I’ve heard of one case like this where eBay paid the original owner the amount of the sale but I assume that’s because they agreed to that settlement arrangement (I want my watch back). Stay tuned.

[Guppydriver]

That EBAY sale includes box and some other items. I would have thought that the the Olympic boxes would be much harder to procure.

I sure hope you get your watch back, it's a gorgeous speedy!

[Guppydriver]

OOps. Didn't realize the theft was two years old because the months were so close. Plenty of time to find a matching box and other items. My bad

[BLNR Nairobi]

Prayers up that you get your property back. Really hoping for a great outcome.

[77T]

Originally Posted by repoman

No insurance claim ever made. My local police have already gathered evidence and will be issuing a subpoena to eBay for buyer and seller identity. I’ve heard of one case like this where eBay paid the original owner the amount of the sale but I assume that’s because they agreed to that settlement arrangement (I want my watch back). Stay tuned.

That's great news - I almost snared my Platona from an eBay auction by a shady dealer - but had no luck with NYC police and the dealer quickly removed the listing when he got wind of the situation. (I did eventually get it back via an RSC seizure in UK)

I hope your efforts with local police work out quickly.

BTW, it's the unwitting buyer's ID you want. eBay will reimburse the buyer via claw-back from the seller (if your different law enforcement agencies cooperate).

There are a lot of “it depends” factors.

It’s one thing for you to say, “I know it's mine,” and another for a LEO to confirm that on the remote end. Interagency networking will be key.

Once you know where this property is located, your local authorities will need a LEO there to serve as an attester for a judge to issue a search warrant in that jurisdiction. Also, the property has to be valuable enough to merit that detective going to the trouble of obtaining the warrant. This usually means on the high end of their jurisdiction's case backlog. So this can vary by city - in my case, a Platona was low end for NYC - it was going into a hopper with much bigger fish on their court calendar.

Your local LEO must convince the LEO where the property is located that this is important enough to act now. Your watch won't be on the current NCIC list so this isn't a subpoena situation. The Article File records remain active for the balance of the year of entry (your theft police report date) plus 1 year, so the watch dropped off in Dec., 2023 methinks.

Maybe ask your local LEO to add it back into NCIC (if possible) with the alleged eBay sale as an additional count of "theft by conversion" on the old file. (This assumes you can make a nexus of "thief as seller" argument - otherwise the eBay seller may have been an unwitting buyer himself)

I am not a lawyer so this isn't legal advice - get one if you need one - I learned this stuff chasing my stolen Rolexes. Every case is different.

I've recovered 2 and still chasing 2. Just sharing in the spirit of community.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[jedione65]

Originally Posted by repoman

I found it. Sold on Ebay June 23 2024. Seller calls himself WilliamsburgWatchesLLC on Ebay, Timepieces_NYC on Reddit and
"tpnyc2" on Instagram. Ebay link here: https://ebay.to/4d9eyqs

Working with law enforcement and Ebay Fraud department to retrieve my stolen watch. Frankly, I have very low expectations of success.

If anyone knows seller real identity, please DM me. Thank you.

Any pointers on tracking down watches? How did you manage to find it on eBay, it seems like looking for needles in a haystack. Several months ago our entire watch collection was stolen during a burglary. All the serial numbers were registered on various watch databases and with the Rolex watch registry. I’ve looked on eBay and other sales sites but lost hope.
One of the watches was searched on watch register and the are trying to recover it but not getting my hopes up.
Detective was working the case for awhile but now several months out not sure the police is interested anymore.

All the watches were stolen without box/documents. There lowlife scumbags need to be hunted down and rot in a jail cell.

[repoman]

I've posted a rather amazing update over on omegaforums.net, probably just as easy to go read it there than copy/paste here;

https://omegaforums.net/threads/stol...5/post-2393944

TLDR: I'm getting the watch back, a friend of mine was the unwitting buyer on Ebay and he's sending it directly to me. He had no idea it was stolen, and no idea it was mine. Just an amazing coincidence.

@77T Thank you for the information you provided, you were exactly right about my watch dropping out of NCIC, even my local LEO's didn't know about that. The information you posted was very helpful.

@jedione65 I will send you a DM going through my process for searching the ends of the Earth for my watch.

[77T]

Hey it's great to get it back.
I know you're chuffed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Speedbird-1]

Good news, so glad you got your watch back.

Interestingly there is one for sale at Watchfinder….no box or paper.

[rootbeer7]

Incredible. Such great news. And so lucky the final buyer was a friend and honest. There is hope!