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Israel Cracks Case In Nick Of Time

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 4, 2008

JERUSALEM - It took time, but Israeli police detectives have cracked one of the country's greatest crimes - the legendary heist of a priceless clock collection from a Jerusalem museum a quarter century ago.

The 1983 theft, the costliest in Israel's history, saw 106 timepieces worth millions of dollars disappear from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art. Among them was a pocket watch made for French queen Marie Antoinette valued at more than $30 million.

The Associated Press

Here's how the case was cracked:

•Investigators got their first break two years ago, when the museum informed them it paid some $40,000 to an anonymous American woman to buy back 40 of the items, including the Marie Antoinette timepiece.

•Police forensics experts were allowed to examine the clocks, and detectives questioned the lawyer who negotiated the sale. The trail led to an Israeli woman in Los Angeles named Nili Shamrat, who police identified as the widow of Naaman Diller - a notorious criminal in Israel after a string of bold thefts in the 1960s and '70s.

•Diller apparently confessed the crime to his wife on his deathbed. When Israeli police and American law enforcement officials arrived at her home last May to question her, they found more of the stolen clocks

•About 40 clocks are missing, but police are pursuing tips on where Diller scattered the goods around the world.

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