In-Depth: What’s Behind The Continued Rise In Watch Theft

The Watch Register reports that more than 6,800 watches were added to its register over the past year, a 60 percent increase over the year prior. Major cities are often the center of watch-related crime. For example, London police data also showed a 60 percent increase in watch thefts in 2022, with police reporting more than 11,000 watch thefts in the United Kingdom as a whole and London claiming more than 6,000 of those crimes. As thieves targeted Richard Mille and other high-value brands, the average price of a luxury watch stolen in London also increased to £9,000 in 2022, nearly double the average price of previous years, according to Bloomberg and the London police.

Here in the United States, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department said that 2022 saw a 30 percent increase in theft involving at least one watch over $5,000 (compared to 2021). Meanwhile, in Paris, the police started a task force dedicated to luxury watch theft last summer, quickly expanding it to 30 agents. According to Paris police, it worked last summer, with luxury watch thefts falling by 44 percent during summer compared to the previous year. Recently, London’s Metropolitan Police have followed suit, tasking its elite Flying Squad with monitoring neighborhoods where watch thefts have become common.

This is on top of the constant barrage of headlines, from cyclist Mark Cavendish and boxer Amir Khan having watches stolen at knife or gunpoint, to the $2.5 million in watches stolen from a boutique in Staten Island this past June. Individuals, stores, dealers, and everyone in between can be the target of watch-related theft.

Even watch manufacturers have begun to take steps to address the problem. At Watches & Wonders this year, Richemont announced Enquirus, a joint effort by its brands that allows owners to register watches and jewelry with their serial numbers and report any lost or stolen timepieces for free. If you’re thinking about buying a pre-owned watch, it also allows potential buyers to freely check the database for stolen items. Richemont said that more than 28,000 watches or jewelry had already been reported as lost or stolen upon Enquirus’ launch in April of this year. 

Meanwhile, Audemars Piguet recently announced that it was adding theft protection to its two-year AP Coverage Service for newly purchased watches, committing to replace or reimburse for a watch that is stolen at home or while traveling. When announcing the program, outgoing AP CEO François-Henry Bennahmias explicitly mentioned the rise in theft concerning potential clients, saying, “We listen to our clients, and we have to look also at what’s going on in the world right now. We have important cities in Europe and the U.S. that are not as safe anymore.”

Manufacturers aren’t the only ones who have noticed the rise in watch theft.

“Watch crime has taken over – it’s a great deal of my business now,” Chris Marinello of Art Recovery International told me. Marinello has had a long career of tracking down stolen or looted art, but he says that over the past few years, he’s received an influx of clients who were the victims of watch theft from every corner of the globe. “Wherever there’s money, there’s watch theft,” he says.

While years ago, watch or jewelry thefts might’ve mostly been home break-ins, nowadays, wrists are targeted in public – when potential targets are at hotels, restaurants, or walking down a busy street. Some studies have pointed out that since the pandemic, residential burglaries have decreased while commercial burglaries have risen; the increase in work-from-home is cited as a common explanation for this trend.

“It’s getting more violent too,” Marinello says, pointing out that thieves are increasingly choreographed in their thefts. He told me multiple stories of clients who were victims of organized thefts in which a gang of thieves quickly approached someone wearing an expensive watch (he often mentioned Richard Mille) and ripped the watch off the individual’s wrist, quickly passing it off to an accomplice who escapes on a motorcycle or scooter. He points out that even knowing how to quickly rip off a watch or undo a watch’s clasp often illustrates a certain level of knowledge and sophistication about the items being stolen.

One of the most infamous of these criminal gangs was London’s “Rolex rippers,” a group of six that was convicted of six counts of robbery after conducting an 18-day crime spree beginning in December 2021. The gang would wield a knife or machete to intimidate victims and steal their watches. But it’s not the watches themselves these criminals care about.

“Criminals are attuned to money,” Marinello says. “If they know there’s easy money on someone’s wrist they’re happy to take it. And watches are easy to transport – they can be stolen in L.A. and end up in Europe a day later.” He also says that law enforcement, often overworked and underfunded, is generally not focused on policing this type of crime.

The growth of the secondary market has, in turn, made it easier for criminals to sell their stolen watches and convert them into cash. After a watch is stolen, a criminal can move it far away and quickly, often to Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, or Saudi Arabia, Marinello says, to a dealer who won’t ask too many questions. These dealers act as fences by buying the stolen goods. They pay well below true market value – sometimes as low as a fifth or a tenth of their value – for the watches because they’re presumed (or known) to be stolen or “hot.” From there, the watch is effectively laundered. It might pass hands a few more times – pawn shops, trade shows, dealers – before it’s brought to the legitimate secondary market, where it’s intermingled with legally obtained watches to obscure its origin. It can then be offered at or near its standard market value. 

When Los Angeles Police Department began a task force to target watches and other luxury goods, it said that force was also targeting these fences – “They are participating in the crime too,” the task force’s leader said. 

Sometimes, these stolen watches eventually wind up at large auction houses. For example, Marinello mentioned a Richard Mille RM 002 (valued at more than $300,000) that was stolen from a client of his in Milan. When the man was visiting in September 2022, two thieves approached him as he was getting into a taxi, injured his finger, and used the opportunity to steal his watch.

Seven months later, the same RM 002, with a matching serial number, appeared at Antiquorum Hong Kong’s June 2023 auction. According to Marinello, Antiquorum Switzerland wasn’t responsive when he reached out to their CEO and the Managing Director. (He also shared some of these emails with me.) However, the watch was removed from the catalog shortly after Marinello inquired about it.

Soon after, Marinello’s client filed a criminal complaint against Antiquorum in Geneva, asking if the auction house was in possession of the RM 002. Antiquorum Genève SA, the auction house’s Swiss entity, responded that it was not and never had been in possession of the Richard Mille, directing all inquiries to Antiquorum’s Hong Kong entity, Antiquorum Auctioneer Hong Kong Ltd. Like many international auction houses, Antiquorum Geneva and Hong Kong are separate legal entities.

Corporate structures aside, it often surprises people how little an auction office in one country knows about what’s going on at an office in another country (though every auction house is structured and operates a bit differently). Still, while Antiquorum Switzerland might be able to pass off legal obligations when it comes to Antiquorum Hong Kong’s activities, what it should do – beyond cooperating with police or government authorities – is often a more difficult question.

After an auction house is presented with a proper police report and documentation regarding a potentially stolen watch, it can put them in a difficult situation. On the one hand, knowingly trading in stolen property is a crime, and since a consignor’s identity is known only to the auction house, they’re best positioned to help authorities trace the origins of a stolen watch.

On the other hand, laws often protect good-faith purchasers of stolen property who have paid for that property (called bona fide purchasers). It’s a complex area of law often prone to litigation that auction houses would prefer to avoid getting involved with whenever possible. Typically, by the time a watch arrives at a public auction, the consignor would be a good-faith purchaser – it’d be foolish for a criminal to put a watch at auction, where serial and movement numbers are often published. (Publishing these numbers — as Antiquorum does, allowing the watch to be traced in this instance — is something I feel should be standard at auctions.) 

Marinello said that “all auction houses are getting stolen watches,” but what separates good sellers from bad is how they deal with a potentially stolen watch after it’s reported, saying he’s seen the most cooperation from the three largest traditional houses: Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips. He also pointed out that since auctions are commission-driven, with most taking a 25 percent commission on sales, their incentives aren’t always aligned when it comes to conducting due diligence on a watch and its consignor.

That said, sellers still have a reputation to uphold, and auction houses will tell you they do diligence on every watch that passes through their hands before it’s put in a sale. This includes checking against major stolen watch databases like The Watch Register, manufacturer databases, and those that various government authorities keep. Meanwhile, it’s also believed that some manufacturers go through every auction catalog to check lots against their internal databases for potentially stolen watches.

With the various disparate databases, one major issue is the lack of a centralized database or source of truth for stolen watches. This is the problem that companies like The Watch Register, which is run by Art Loss Register, the largest private database for stolen artwork in the world, and Richemont’s Enquiris are attempting to address.

While historically, watch theft has been assumed not to be a priority for police or authorities, there’s some evidence this is changing. One reason is that, increasingly, watch theft hints at organized crime and other serious crimes being committed.

For example, in August, Singaporean police arrested a gang of 10 for their involvement in money laundering schemes, which included a seizure of “more than 250 luxury bags and watches.” Meanwhile, last year, the Los Angeles Police Department said that 17 organized gangs had engaged in increasingly violent robberies of victims, targeting watches, handbags, and jewelry. 

The most high-profile example of using watches to launder money is the most recent round of allegations against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, where he and his allies are accused of selling Rolex and Patek watches given by Saudi government officials worth $68,000 to a small retailer outside Philadelphia, and trying to sell a number of other foreign gifts, including a Chopard gift set, through Fortuna Auction in New York.

Watches are small, portable, often with high values, and with a growing market of secondary market buyers willing to pay for watches that come to them. Besides precious stones, there aren’t many goods better equipped for money laundering.

“The proliferation of watches was matched by a surge in pickpockets and street robbers,” Rebecca Struthers writes of 18th-century London in Hands of Time. “Stolen watches were quickly and easily disseminated into London’s criminal underground through pawnbrokers and second-hand shops. Unscrupulous jewelers readily took them in; there were even horologists willing to modify them by changing names or hallmarks to avoid them being identified by their true owners.” You hardly have to change any words for this passage to reflect the circumstances of today, except that this criminal activity now stretches across the globe.

Today, the rise in watch theft is also part of a larger trend affecting the entire luxury industry. “We had the most crimes against jewelers in the U.S. last year that we’ve ever had,” the Jewelers Security Alliance said recently, citing a more than 30 percent increase over any previous year.

Beyond watches and jewelry, other luxury items have increasingly become targets too – everything from wine to Hermes Birkin bags. As with watches, the growing secondary market, along with the fact that much of this resale activity has moved online, has made these goods a target. It’s simply much easier for a grey dealer to operate online than to open up and operate a physical store. Add to this the fact that many people became increasingly aware of luxury goods over the course of the pandemic, having found themselves stuck at home with not much to do and nowhere else to spend their money. Soon, watches and other luxury brands appeared all over Instagram while name-dropped on popular songs.

Marinello also said there’s a certain acceptability to this type of theft – “rich people and their timepieces,” he said. There’s a cultural attitude that the crime is relatively victimless, even as thefts have become more violent, with those it affects able to handle the loss. Sometimes, these thefts are even portrayed in equally luxurious terms, more like an Ocean’s Eleven heist than a criminal conspiracy. Some headlines reporting the theft at Piaget’s Paris boutique described a “well-dressed” trio of “clever” conspirators. In reality, these thieves and their crimes are no different from any other robbery. Because of this perception, it’s not been a priority for police, especially as their actions and budgets have become increasingly scrutinized.

“That’s why my main solution to this problem is to get your watches insured,” Marinello said. In addition to insurance, these are a few other best practices for collectors:

• First, when you buy a new or pre-owned watch, you should get complete papers with serial and movement numbers. If these aren’t provided, especially for a newer watch, ask why.
• If a watch is stolen, immediately file a police report and include all information and numbers for your stolen watch. Marinello only takes cases with police reports. Also, submit your stolen watch to every relevant database.
• Keep your insurance schedules up to date with all information about your watches and their current values.
• Don’t wear an expensive watch exposed on your wrist in large cities.
• Finally, Marinello says, “If you are approached, give them your watch and don’t fight because your life cannot be replaced. Your Patek can be.”

Having adequate insurance means the victim can be paid out for the value of their watch, and the insurance company will then be subrogated and work to recover the stolen watch. If it’s ever recovered, the original victim might be able to get their watch back. Still, most stolen watches today are uninsured.

Because it often takes years to recover stolen property, Marinello says it’s difficult to say what percentage of watches are recovered, but historically, he recovers about 10 to 15 percent of stolen art. Even with databases and people like Marinello pursuing them, stolen watches often cross international borders, and it’s difficult to coordinate cooperation among the appropriate authorities.

“The story of watches in the 18th century has two very different sides,” Rebecca Struthers writes in Hands of Time.” On the one hand, you have the glamorous golden age of horological advances, of marine chronometers, of watches crafted by some of the most highly educated scientists in society.” But there was also the “murky underbelly” of fakes, forgeries, and rising theft that came with the proliferation of watches and the recognition of their value.

Theft is an issue that goes back nearly to the time when watches first became widely recognized as luxury items. Today, they’re more recognizable than ever, and this problem is as prevalent as ever. As the watch market continues to grow, any solution will be multi-faceted and involve various stakeholders in the industry. In the meantime, the best collectors can do is realize no watch is safe and take whatever steps they can to protect their watches (and themselves). 

Top image: Stefano Rellandini/Getty Images