Couple cheat jeweler out of £2million watches by swapping them for plastic fakes

A COUPLE have cheated a jeweler out of £2million watches by swapping them for plastic fakes.

The man and younger accomplice posed as Swiss investors interested in buying quality timepieces Hatton Garden Business.

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But they exchanged a bag containing nine exquisite watches for an identical one with the worthless counterfeit items inside.

The victim told The Sun: “He looked at the watches and the paperwork which he said was fine.

“Then he swapped bags. I don’t know how he did it. His hands must have been like a magician.”

CCTV obtained by The Sun shows the well-dressed couple carrying out the scam at the central London shop near the scene of the 2015 Hatton Garden locker robbery.

The loot, which includes three Richard Milles worth at least £400,000 each and valuables from Audemars Piguet and Rolex, is believed to be Britain’s largest reported watch theft.

The well-prepared duo booked an appointment and arrived with the pacifiers in a large white envelope-shaped bag of the kind the jeweler uses to display watches.

They left and said they would sort a bank transfer but didn’t come back.

The victim looked in the bag half an hour later and discovered the swindle.

He said, “They knew exactly what they were doing.”

He didn’t report it to the police at the time because he received death threats, but instead spread the video surveillance among other jewelers.

It is feared that the real watches were smuggled abroad.

Two months later, a 32-year-old Romanian woman was arrested when the boss of a Knightsbridge shop where she showed up thought he recognized her from CCTV.

She was released on bail.