“ ‘No mama, no papa’ - that is what they call watches with no papers and no serial number,” Jeff Harris, a Los Angeles-based watch dealer, said.
The rise of online services specializing in identifying lost or stolen watches has helped law enforcement, dealers and diligent buyers - even in Miami, which the FBI has identified as one of the top fencing hubs in the United States (and where the Watches & Wonders fair is opening Friday). Stolen off a wrist or taken in a smash-and-grab attack, high-end timepieces, easily transportable and often untraceable, could easily be turned into cash.īut that has been changing. Watches have long been easy targets for thieves.
