$769,500 earrings recovered after Florida man swallows them

Orlando police have recovered two sets of earrings worth a combined $769,500 (£597,000) after an alleged thief swallowed them more than two weeks ago.

Jaythan Gilder, 32, swallowed the Tiffany & Co. diamond earrings around the time he was taken into custody on 26 February, police said.

Mr Gilder was monitored by detectives at an Orlando hospital for “more than a dozen days” before the earrings were expelled from his system, according to the Orlando Police Department.

Mr Gilder faces charges of robbery with a mask and grand theft in the first degree.

Tiffany’s has since cleaned the earrings.

Police allege Mr Gilder posed as an assistant to an NBA player so he could be shown “very high-end jewellery” in a VIP room at a Tiffany & Co. store in Orlando, Florida on 26 February.

Mr Gilder allegedly distracted store employees, then ran from the store with two pairs of earrings. The suspect apparently also dropped a diamond ring valued at $587,000 as he fled the store.

When officers caught up with him later that day, they saw Mr Gilder “swallowing several objects believed to be the stolen earrings,” police said.

Officials transporting Mr Gilder to jail allegedly heard him say, “I should have thrown them out the window,” CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reported.

At the jail, Mr Gilder allegedly asked staff, “Am I going to be charged with what’s in my stomach?”

Police later released an x-ray that appeared to show an individual’s abdomen with a foreign object inside.

Orlando police department said they took Mr Gilder to an area hospital and monitored him for about two weeks until the earrings were recovered.

Detective Aaron Goss said the case “quickly turned into a marathon, not a sprint”.

On 12 March, police said they recovered the fourth Tiffany & Co. earring.

When the earrings were brought back to the Tiffany’s, the store’s master jeweller confirmed that serial numbers on the jewellery matched the stolen pieces, Mr Goss said.

Gilder is currently in custody at the Orange County Jail.

Police allege his criminal history shows a 2022 robbery at a Tiffany & Co store in Texas.

There are 48 separate warrants out for his arrest in Colorado.