Solving theft - just took time

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 in the United States in 2004.

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.

Rachel Hasson, the museum's artistic director, calls the gold and rock crystal watch "the Mona Lisa of the clock world." Also recovered were a Breguet creation from 1819 known as the "Sympathiques" and a clock shaped like a pistol from the same period.

Police forensics specialists 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, who police identified as the widow of Diller, who pulled off 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 American law enforcement officials arrived at her home last May to question her, they found more of the stolen clocks.

Police placed a gag order on the case, but lifted it last week after Israeli media violated the order.

Diller's widow refused to answer questions from the Associated Press when contacted Saturday, and did not answer her phone Sunday and yesterday. Her Israeli lawyer, Hila Efron-Gabai, also refused to discuss the case.

Oded Yaniv, one of the investigators who broke the case, said about 40 clocks are missing, but police are pursuing tips on where Diller scattered the goods around the world.

Yaniv called the investigation a "once in a lifetime" experience, filled with international intrigue in the murky world of art dealing and antiquity trading.

Diller was notorious 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 people trying to stop him.