$10M in Gems Snatched in New York Diamond District Heist
Up to $10 million in diamonds have been reported stolen from a New York jeweler who left them in an unlocked safe, police said on Friday.
The jeweler, Jonathan Birnbaum, reported the diamonds missing from his Manhattan business on Thursday, according to police.
Birnbaum kept the safe unlocked to allow easier access to other gems. The diamonds are worth between $5 million and $10 million.
The diamonds could have been taken anytime between Nov. 24, when he put the precious stones inside the safe, and Tuesday, when he first noticed them missing, police said.
Investigators were interviewing five employees with access to the safe, as well as contractors who were working in the office at the time.
J Birnbaum Inc is located on 47th Street in Manhattan, the heart of the city’s diamond district. It specializes in high-end diamonds and has created jewelry worn on red carpets from the Oscars to the Emmys, according to its website.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO