A globe-trotting jewel thief suspected of looting luxury stores in Beverly Hills, Miami and South Korea is now behind bars following robberies at Cartier and Tiffany in New York City.
Yaorong Wang, 49, was arrested in Manhattan last week on suspicion of stealing diamond rings worth nearly $300,000 from a world-famous jewelry store, prosecutors said.
His persistent criminal activity includes stealing an $18,000 watch from a London jewelry store in Manhasset, Long Island, last month, according to a criminal complaint.
Authorities are also focusing on Wang, who has received warnings from Interpol for similar robberies at Tiffany & Co. in South Korea, a Hermès store in New Jersey, and Cartier stores in Beverly Hills, California and Miami, Florida. There is. This was announced by enforcement officials and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
The NYPD’s Major Crimes Unit tracked Wang to an apartment on 40th Street in Queens on Friday, where he was arrested and charged with two counts of grand larceny in the Manhattan theft, police officials said.
Police sources said Wang’s arrest appears to have ended years of criminal activity that took him halfway around the world and left his pockets heavy with stolen rings and watches.
Sources say his wild odyssey began in September 2018, when he went to Tiffany & Co. in the South Korean capital of Seoul and brought home a $330,000 diamond ring.
Officials said he took a few years off before coming to the United States last December and immediately began moving from store to store across the country.
Officials say he wandered into a Cartier store in Beverly Hills in January and left with a $48,000 diamond ring and a watch valued at $10,000, conveniently forgetting to pay for it. That’s what it means.
He then traveled to the Big Apple, where he allegedly robbed a Tiffany store on 5th Avenue in Rockefeller Center on March 4th and a Cartier store at 20 Hudson Yards on March 12th, according to the complaint.
According to court documents, Wang entered the Tiffany store around 3 p.m. that afternoon and asked the woman behind the counter about some jewelry.
In the end, he settled on a diamond ring, which was worth a whopping $255,000.
According to the complaint, Wang held the ring, looked at it, returned it and left the store.
However, the ring he returned was not the same one the employee had given him, even though she thought it was.
About a week later, the store was conducting a routine inventory and employees discovered that the supposedly authentic rings were actually fake cubic zirconia stones set in 18K white gold, according to the complaint. That’s what it means.
It was significantly different from the expensive original, which was set with natural diamonds in platinum, stamped, engraved and given a unique code, according to the complaint.
Investigators viewed surveillance footage from that day in which the defendant allegedly examined the ring, then used some trickery to slip it into his palm and unload a cheap fake.
A store employee took a photo of the ring on March 5, but there were no markings or markings on it, according to the complaint.
On March 12, he allegedly performed a similar trick on an employee at the Cartier store in Hudson Yards.
According to investigators, Wang came to the store around 1:30 p.m. that day and asked to see two engagement rings and two watches.
The employee handed the man a diamond ring and then became distracted, according to the complaint.
At that point, Wang allegedly returned one of the rings and slipped the other, worth about $25,000, into his pocket before walking away.
The robbery, caught on camera, was the second big score in just eight days.
He then traveled to Miami and allegedly lifted a $16,000 watch from a Cartier store on March 24, officials said.
He then returned to the Capital Region and stole a flashy watch from Manhasset on April 19th, and two watches (worth a total of $17,000) from the Hermes store in the American Dream Mall in East Rutherford on April 26th. sources said he stole it.
In the Long Island case, investigators allege Wang slipped the Chopard watch into his left jacket pocket as he was looking at watches at London Jewelers on Northern Boulevard, according to the complaint. .
He then walked past the register and out the door, according to the complaint.
Officials said Wang was in possession of three watches stolen from Manhasset and New Jersey when he was arrested, as well as a fake stone that he used to replace the genuine watches.
He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Saturday in Manhattan Criminal Court, but a judge released him on supervised release, according to the complaint and law enforcement officials.
But authorities then transported him to Nassau County, where he was held on $500,000 cash bail and an outstanding warrant out of East Rutherford, New Jersey, for watch theft.
Wang pleaded not guilty Sunday morning to a charge of third-degree grand larceny in Nassau District Court, according to online court records. His next appearance is scheduled for Tuesday morning.
He is scheduled to return to Manhattan Criminal Court on May 14, according to court records.
Neither Miami nor East Rutherford police responded to requests for comment Monday.
