The key facts
- The thief took 200 rings, three gold earrings, and three bracelets from the store; the rings turned out to be plastic replicas
- The owner estimated the damage at approximately 150,000 Turkish lira
- The suspect was detained at Sabiha Gökçen Airport and remanded in custody by a court decision
Theft in Kartal and a disappointing haul
On the night of November 4, a jewelry store in the Orhantepe neighborhood of Istanbul's Kartal district was burglarized. According to the Turkish outlet Habertürk, citing investigation data, a 32-year-old citizen of Moldova had earlier copied the code of the remote control for the security roller shutters, and after midnight opened them, got inside, and took 200 rings, three gold earrings, and three bracelets from the display case.
Fakes instead of gold and an airport arrest
Most of the loot turned out to be worthless: the store owner explained that he had displayed plastic replica rings instead of real gold ones precisely as protection against thieves. Only the earrings and bracelets were genuine; the businessman estimated the total damage at approximately 150,000 Turkish lira. The theft was caught on security cameras: after reviewing the footage, officers identified the suspect and learned that he planned to fly out of the country the day after the crime. The man was intercepted at Sabiha Gökçen Airport, where he was trying to board an international flight.
What is known about the detainee
The detainee turned out to be a citizen of Moldova with the initials N. M. According to investigators, he arrived in Turkey on October 7 as a tourist, but, as the investigation believes, had intended to commit a theft from the start. After questioning, the suspect was taken to court, which ordered him remanded in custody.
Context
Life.ru also recalls another recent case — a theft in Tallinn, Estonia, where, according to the outlet, perpetrators broke into the Gold&Gem jewelry store in the T1 shopping mall through a hole in the ceiling on the night of September 23 and stole jewelry worth 500,000 euros, including more than two kilograms of gold; police have opened a criminal investigation. This is a separate incident, unrelated to the Istanbul case.
