Israeli police identify time bandit after 25 years

It took time, but Israeli police detectives have cracked one of the country's greatest crimes -- the legendary heist of a priceless clock collection from a Jerusalem museum a quarter century ago. The heist baffled police for more than two decades. But detectives now blame Naaman Diller -- a notorious Israeli thief who fled to Europe and died of cancer in the United States in 2004.

The 1983 theft, the costliest in Israel's history, saw 106 timepieces worth millions of dollars disappear from the L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art. Among them was a pocket watch made for French Queen Marie Antoinette, which museum officials value at more than $30 million. Although the stolen clocks had no connection to Islamic culture, they were displayed in the museum because they had originally belonged to the father of the museum's founder.

Investigators got their first break two years ago, when the museum informed them it paid some $40,000 to an anonymous American woman to buy back 40 of the items, including the Marie Antoinette timepiece made by famed watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet. Police forensics experts were allowed to examine the clocks, and detectives questioned the lawyer who negotiated the sale. The trail led to an Israeli woman in Los Angeles named Nili Shamrat, whom police identified as the widow of Diller -- a notorious criminal in Israel after a string of bold thefts in the 1960s and '70s.

From there the mystery began to unravel, police say. Diller apparently confessed the crime to his wife on his deathbed. When Israeli police and U.S. law enforcement officials arrived at her home last May to question her, they found more of the stolen clocks.

Diller was renowned in Israel for daring break-ins and an ability to keep one step ahead of the law. He meticulously researched sites for hours and used innovative techniques that earned him the admiration of the same people who were trying to stop him.

"He was a legendary robber. He was very different, very intelligent, and had a unique style," said Oded Yaniv, one of the investigators who broke the case. "We are all disappointed that we don't have the chance to sit and talk to him and investigate him. We feel like we missed out on that." Yaniv said he and his colleagues were shocked to discover Diller acted alone.