Police arrest one suspect in series of jewel robberies

Thursday, June 5, 2003 | 9:21 a.m.

Metro Police have arrested a suspect in the heists of more than $2 million worth of diamond necklaces, pendants and other gems from upscale Las Vegas shops.

Officers said Wednesday they are still searching for as many as four more people who may be involved.

Metro detectives believe the jewelry thieves are part of an international ring that may have stolen precious gems in Denver and perhaps other major cities.

Juro Markelic, 46, was arrested Monday hours after a 55-carat yellow diamond pendant worth more than $711,000 was snatched from a jewelry show in Las Vegas.

Metro investigators said Markelic told them he was from Serbia. The Serbian consul general in Chicago said Markelic is not Serbian.

It was on display at the JCK Show at the Sands Expo and Convention Center, police said.

The FBI, Interpol and the Immigration and Naturalization Service have been contacted to help track down the other suspects, police said.

An alert exhibitor at the international jewelry show on Monday spotted a man who police say may also have participated in the Dec. 5, 2002, heist of the "millennium" diamond necklace, Metro Sgt. Priscilla Green said.

The "millennium" necklace, worth more than $1 million, is a one-of-a-kind 96-carat platinum necklace mounted with 2,000 Russian diamonds and rare black coral from the western Caribbean. It was stolen from the Bernard K. Passman Gallery at The Venetian's Grand Canal Shoppes.

None of the jewelry has been recovered.

Before he was captured, the suspect tried to throw out a room key card and made a telephone call, police said.

"He was evasive," Sgt. Tim Shaloob, Green's partner, said.

The man was wearing an exhibitor's badge as he strolled through the displays of jewels, but police said they did not know if the badge is legitimate.

The suspect acted as part of a "distraction team," Green said.

Distraction team thieves are professionals, police said. After individuals from a theft ring check merchandise a day or two earlier, they enter the shop or exhibit and distract the clerks, and then one of the ring members snatches the jewels.

"It's a distraction, not a robbery with a gun," said Lt. Larry Spinoza, who specializes in property crimes.

Whether the thieves are working for themselves or others has not been determined, police said.

Police described the prime suspect as a man of European descent in his early 30s, about 5 feet, 8 inches tall and very thin with dark hair. The two male suspects were wearing dark gray suits and said they were from Serbia.

Another distraction team could have included a man with grayish hair and trendy silver or gray-framed eyeglasses accompanied by a woman in her early 30s with dirty blonde hair pinned in a bun and wearing black jacket and pants made of parachute material with beads strung on the bottom of the pants.

"They were dressed very fashionably," Green said. "They're working the West Coast very hard."

There were at least three major jewelry thefts from hotel jewelry stores in 2002, according to police reports.

And in the last four months of last year, thieves stole more than $2.1 million in jewelry in seven separate heists in Las Vegas, according to the International Jewelers' Security Alliance.

Anyone with information about the thieves or the thefts is asked to contact Green at 262-3720 or CrimeStoppers at 385-5555.