This isn’t your average jewel heist story.
It involves a fake NBA rep, a luxury diamond store, a wild car stop in Florida, and—yes—someone swallowing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of Tiffany & Co. diamonds.
Welcome to the strange and twisted tale of Jaythan Gilder, a 32-year-old serial jewel thief who tried to outsmart police using, well… his digestive system.
Posing as a Buyer and Bolting with Bling
It all started on February 26, when Gilder allegedly walked into a Tiffany & Co. store, pretending to represent an NBA player interested in purchasing high-end diamonds.
Once inside a private room with a staff member, Gilder reportedly grabbed two sets of diamond earrings—one worth $609,500 and the other $160,000—and made a run for it.
Police were quickly alerted, and troopers across Florida were told to be on the lookout.
Several hours later, Gilder was pulled over about 330 miles from Orlando.
Caught on Camera with a Suspicious Mouth Full
Thanks to police bodycam footage obtained by The Smoking Gun, we get to see the moment officers suspected something was off.
Gilder was already handcuffed, but one officer noticed he was acting strange—talking with his mouth closed and clearly moving something around inside it.
Without hesitation, officers grabbed him, pushed him face-down, and demanded he spit out what was in his mouth. “You’re about to get tased,” one trooper warned.
Another officer quickly added, “He swallowed something.”
At first, police thought it might be drugs.
Gilder had a white substance on his lips, which he claimed was just cold sore cream.
The Search for the Stolen Sparkle
A search of Gilder’s rental car revealed something damning—price tags and earring cards for Tiffany & Co. jewelry.
That’s when officers realized: the diamonds were likely in his stomach.
He was arrested and taken to a nearby hospital, but reportedly refused an X-ray.
Once at the jail, scans confirmed he had “foreign objects” inside him.
Gilder, possibly realizing the game was up, asked police: “Am I going to be charged with what’s in my stomach?”
Using Ramadan as a Delay Tactic
Police took him back to the hospital, hoping to recover the diamonds.
But Gilder wasn’t making it easy.
He refused to take laxatives and claimed he was observing Ramadan, meaning he could only eat during specific hours.
This slowed things down, but nature eventually ran its course.
Diamonds Start to Reappear… Sort Of
By March 10—two weeks after the theft—officers began tracking Gilder’s bowel movements.
Early that morning, they recovered two diamonds… but not the ones stolen from Tiffany & Co. They were of little value, and it’s still unclear where those had come from.
Then, a few hours later, Gilder finally passed two diamonds that matched the stolen Tiffany items.
On June 12, the final missing diamond was recovered.
Tiffany’s experts gave all the diamonds a thorough cleaning before returning them to the company.
Whether they’ve been sold again remains unknown.
A Pattern of Swallowing Evidence
This isn’t Gilder’s first time trying to smuggle diamonds internally.
In 2022, he was arrested for stealing jewels from a Colorado store and allegedly swallowed them then, too.
But in that case, the stones were never recovered.
Now, Gilder faces robbery and grand theft charges.
He remains in custody and was recently denied bail when he tried to attend his mother’s funeral in Texas.
He’s also wanted in Colorado for skipping out on bail.
The Final Sparkle
From pretending to be an NBA buyer to swallowing diamonds and delaying justice using religious fasting, Jaythan Gilder’s story is one for the crime history books.
But even with all the clever stunts, the law caught up with him—and this time, so did his own stomach.