Valuable Stolen Watch Recovered 5,000 Miles Away A Decade Later

CLEARWATER, FL -- Time certainly proved to be on Alberto Laboni's side. On Dec. 21, Clearwater Police detectives returned a valuable watch to the Milan, Italy, resident following its theft nearly a decade ago.

In 2009, Laboni was driving through downtown Milan when a man on a scooter intentionally sideswiped the side mirror on his car. When Laboni reached out the car window to readjust the skewed mirror, an accomplice on another scooter pulled up and deftly snatched the $21,000 Audemars Piguet watch from Laboni's wrist.

After nine years, Laboni had lost all hope of ever seeing his treasured Audemars Piguet watch again. Then, just before Christmas, he received an unexpected phone call from a police detective 5,000 miles away in Clearwater, Florida.

The family-owned Audemars Piguet Inc. company has been producing luxury mechanical watches in Switzerland since 1875. The company created the first minute repeater wristwatch in 1892, the first skeleton wristwatch in 1934 and is known for manufacturing some of the thinnest, lightest and most accurate timepieces in the world.

The prized Audemars Piguet is the watch favored by tennis star Serena Williams and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Audemars Piguet considers every watch it creates a work of art and, as such, the company keeps meticulous records on all sales of its watches. Every watch is registered with a unique serial number that can be accessed by employees at its select boutiques around the world.

Those records were instrumental in locating the watch's true owner.

Audemars Piguet happens to have a store at 3040 Gulf-to-Bay Blvd. in Clearwater. A couple of weeks ago, a man who bought the Audemars Piguet watch secondhand brought it to the Clearwater boutique for repairs. Employees looked up the serial number on the watch and discovered it had been reported stolen in Milan in 2009. They promptly contacted Clearwater Police.

Clearwater Police Detective Brian Whitehead said there's no way to track how many times the watch may have been sold on the secondhand market to buyers who were oblivious to the theft. The thief who swiped it from Laboni's wrist most likely sold it immediately to an unsuspecting buyer. Over the next nine years, Whitehead said it could have been sold through internet marketplaces around the world multiple times before ending up in Clearwater.

Using the serial number and the watch manufacturer's sales information, Whitehead began searching for the original owner, eventually finding Laboni still living in Milan.

Laboni was thrilled to hear that his watch had been recovered and couldn't wait to get it back. He immediately packed up his wife and two children, who weren't even born when the watch was stolen, and flew from Italy to Miami. The Labonis then drove to Clearwater, arriving on Dec. 21, just in time to celebrate a memorable Christmas.

Photos via Clearwater Police

Alberto Laboni and his family meet the detectives at Clearwater Police Department headquarters to help trace his stolen watch.

Laboni has kept a photo showing himself wearing his treasured watch before it was stolen nine years ago.

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