A Florida jewelry thief swiped more than $700,000 in earrings and then swallowed the evidence just before he was arrested near Orlando last week, officials said.
Jaythan Gilder, 32, told employees at Tiffany & Co. in the Mall at Millenia on Feb. 26 that he represented “a professional athlete” before being “shown several high-value pieces of jewelry, including two pairs of earrings worth $769,500,” Orlando police said in a statement.
Surveillance footage appeared to show Gilder sitting at a table inside the store with two pairs of earrings and a necklace in front of him. He then grabbed the earrings and took off, footage showed.
The Florida Highway Patrol caught up with Gilder, was who “seen swallowing several objects believed to be the stolen earrings,” police said.
Orlando police released an x-ray image that appeared to show a foreign object in the suspect’s abdomen.
Gilder pulled off “a similar robbery” at a Tiffany & Co. in 2022 in The Woodlands, Texas, and he has “48 separate warrants out of Colorado,” police added.
He was still in custody in Orange County on Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately clear if he’d hired an attorney or had one assigned to him.
An Orlando police spokesperson declined comment on Wednesday when NBC News asked if the stolen earrings had been recovered.
Police have “no additional information to share at this time,” the department representative said.
