I arrived for my appointment to interview Chance Thurston at his upper Eastside penthouse. Thurston was tall and gracious. He showed me his elegant art collection before we sat in the living room. However, his mood changed when I showed him the six pictures.
In a wary voice, he asked, “Why are you showing me these?”
“You and your wife Betty are known supporters of the arts,” I said. “I hired a firm to search the media. Are any of the Rolexes you’re wearing at the art shows and operas in these pictures the same Rolex mentioned in your insurance claim? It’s hard to tell from the pictures.”
“Yes, it’s the one hundred grand Cosmograph Daytona.”
“Do you own other Rolexes? Perhaps an Oyster Perpetual?”
“I only own one Rolex, a Cosmograph Daytona.” Thurston squirmed, uneasy at any suggestion of impropriety. “Don’t try to embarrass me, I’m a Vice-President at Citibank. I would never do anything underhanded.”
“Sorry, it’s my job,” I said. “Let’s discuss the robbery. I interviewed the police officers. According to them, your Rolex watch was inadvertently destroyed during the arrest.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“One officer said you and Betty attended a benefit the night of the robbery. You took the subway home?”
“We’re native New Yorkers. The subway was the quickest way.”
“Were many people on the subway platform?”
“No, very few,” Thurston said. “The robbery took place around ten o’clock.”
I nodded. “According to the police report, a mugger approached with a gun, demanded your wallet and watch?”
“That’s correct.”
“It’s not in the police report, but I presume the mugger didn’t get far?”
“He was immediately jumped by two undercover policemen,” Thurston said. “They had him under surveillance. There was a scuffle. One officer kept yelling, ‘Show me your hands!’ While the other tried to handcuff him. The mugger threw the wallet and Rolex watch into an oncoming subway. The wallet was recovered but not the watch which fell onto the track and was crushed.”
After a few more questions, I thanked Thurston and left.
I submitted my report with the six photos for review to Sam Mitchelson, corporate counsel at Premium Home insurance. I included six enlargements of the watches in the photos, which I hadn’t shown to Chance.
A Rolex authorized service center performed high resolution digital magnification to enlarge the Rolex watches in the six photos. The Rolex watches turned out to be sophisticated counterfeits of the Daytona, a prized and highly sought Rolex style among watch collectors.
Mitchelson called and thanked me. He wanted to deny Thurston’s insurance claim for one hundred thousand dollars and have him arrested for insurance fraud. “The case needs to be stronger,” Mitchelson said. “Continue to investigate. Let’s build a rock solid criminal case.”
Mitchelson saw a potential legal problem in court proving which Rolex was actually destroyed. Was it a knockoff or a one hundred thousand dollar Rolex Cosmograph Daytona? Unfortunately, the high resolution enlargements couldn’t answer that question.
I devised a plan, which Mitchelson approved, to trick Thurston into confessing and then arrest him. I contacted the NYPD to assign an undercover police detective.
I hoped to catch Thurston off guard by making it appear that I had documents for him to sign and notarize before the insurance payout. I made an appointment to meet Thurston at his penthouse.
I introduced the undercover as a notary. Thurston escorted us to his study so we could talk in private.
“Chance, the game is up,” I said, when we were seated.
“What are you talking about?” Thurston tried to appear calm.
“We know the destroyed Rolex Cosmograph Daytona is counterfeit.” I opened the briefcase, removed the photos I’d shown him previously. Then I handed him the six photos with the enlargements.
“A Rolex authorized service center enlarged the Rolex watches using high resolution digital magnification and determined they’re knockoff.”
I showed him the incriminating details in the enlargements.
Thurston was blown away. He stammered, “You… you can’t tell anything from these photos.”
“Yes, we can and there’s more.” I pulled out a small paper bag. “Inside this bag are what remains of the watch the mugger threw onto the subway tracks.”
“You brought the watch!” Thurston was flabbergasted.
“Surprised?” I smiled, knowingly. “The Rolex authorized service center inspected what New York City Transit Authority managed to collect of your watch and determined it was counterfeit.”
Since Thurston had no idea what the crushed Rolex looked like, I hammered away at a knockoff Rolex watch purchased from a street peddler. I smashed it into pieces that allowed me to easily point out flaws that corresponded to the flaws the Rolex authorized service center discovered in the dial and Oyster lock folding safety clasp in the enlarged photos.
“You better come quietly.” The officer identified himself and produced his badge.
Thurston paled and confessed. “All right, it’s fake.”
Alerted by the commotion, Betty came into the room.
“Betty, call my lawyer,” Thurston said. “I’m being arrested.”
Later that day, I was on the phone with Mitchelson. “When you first got the insurance claim to review, why did you suspect the crushed watch might be a counterfeit?” Mitchelson asked.
“Conspicuous consumption,” I said. “When I was a private investigator, I dealt with wealthy clients who purchased expensive Rolex watches as investments. They kept them in a home safe or bank deposit box. At social events, they wore a counterfeit Rolex. I guessed Thurston might do the same.”
Mitchelson pointed out Thurston could have been wearing the genuine Rolex watch the night he was robbed.
“Yes, he might have,” I said. “But Thurston had already implicated himself by lying about the Rolex watches in the enlarged pictures. That’s why I knew my plan to pressure him into confessing would work.”
[Image Credit : Photo by Lukas Tennie on Unsplash]
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