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?”
