FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[vic rzonca]

SPECIAL ALERT!!!!! $10,000 REWARD

Message from Dona Leicht

This past weekend we were working a show at the Holiday Inn in Santa Ana, California (West Coast Gem and Mineral Show). Our show space is a separate meeting room (Irvine Room) which we set up on Thursday. A hotel maintenance man installed a new lock on the only door and gave us what he said were "the only keys (4)" to the room. We left at 6pm on Saturday, November 12 and returned at 8:30 am Sunday morning, November 13. The door was LOCKED and Wayne used his key to open as usual. Sometime during the night the room was entered (no signs of forced entry at the door or windows) and approximately 60 small to miniature gold specimens were stolen from a locked display case on a table. We had taken all of the larger golds home with us each night. The labels were left behind and nothing else in the room was disturbed, except for my new MacBookPro which was also taken. We believe this is an 'inside job' at the hotel and the specimens will no doubt be sent off to a refiner for meltdown to recover the gold value. We estimate that the most they are likely to get would be $8,000 - $10,000 since these were all well crystallized specimens and not much weight. There are a dozen of the new Brazilian golds, and the rest are from the Oriental Mine and the Eagle's Nest Mine. We did the one thing we should not have done and that was trusting that the locks and roaming security would protect us - lesson learned at a very high cost. We are offering a reward for information leading to the return of the specimens. Contact Dona at dona @ kristalle . com for more information on the police case number, police contact, etc. Should anyone be offered these specimens, please try to take possession of them, detain the individual, get names if possible and call the police immediately. We are still working on the 'inside job' theory because we cannot imagine that a member of our collecting community would be so evil, but perhaps that is another lesson we will learn. Thanks to all of y ou over the years who have given us such pleasure and support - that means more than any loss we have now.
View user's profile

[LeadMineGal]

What a horrible thing! I hope & pray that this person/person's are caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

My thoughts are this; surely a large hotel would have some sort of video system? Even if the cameras only show hallways, lobby, etc., perhaps they could still come up with a list of possible suspects.

The best of luck to you and please keep this forum posted. Rock people care!