23 pieces, including rings, bracelets, stolen, detectives say
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Las Vegas man working in a store’s jewelry department allegedly stole nearly two dozen diamond pieces, including rings and bracelets, pawning them off for cash, police said in documents the 8 News Now Investigators obtained Thursday.
Carlos Flores-Ochoa faces charges of theft, burglary, and obtaining money, property, rent or labor by false pretenses, records showed.
The 23 stolen diamond pieces were worth nearly $150,000 in total, police said. In each case, Flores-Ochoa allegedly disarmed an alarm and pocketed the jewelry, police said.
In November 2022, an employee at a Centennial Hills big box store near Centennial Center Boulevard and West Tropical Parkway filed a police report alleging Flores-Ochoa, an employee, had stolen jewelry.
Police said Flores-Ochoa admitted to the employee that he had stolen the jewelry and pawned the items. The store manager then afterward fired him, documents said.
Store employees told police Flores-Ochoa was hired in September 2022 and promoted to the jewelry department in October, documents said.
“When an internal investigation was conducted into this, they noticed that the jewelry department had an increase in loss after Carlos was promoted,” police said.
The stolen jewelry was pawned at two businesses in the Las Vegas valley, police said. The jewelry was pawned at severely undervalued prices, detectives said. For example, a ring worth more than $6,000 was pawned for $900, police said.
The pawn businesses also lost money as police recovered the stolen items. Neither was aware the items were stolen, police said.
Flores-Ochoa initially told police he would turn himself in on the charges but then stopped returning detectives’ phone calls, police said. Police arrested Flores-Ochoa on Tuesday, April 11.
Flores-Ochoa made his first court appearance on Wednesday, records showed. Judge Rebecca Saxe released him on his own recognition, ordering him to stay out of trouble.
A file image of a diamond is shown in this article as a reference.