Authorities track down $70,000 worth of jewelry stolen from Los Altos family at Logan Airport
BOSTON -- A Los Altos family arriving in Boston last week said they let their guard down for a second at Logan International Airport, allowing a thief to make off with a bag that had $70,000 worth of heirloom jewelry inside.
According to CBS Boston, it was supposed to be a family-filled week of fun for Raka and Vineet Agrawal and their two children. The family flew into Logan Airport last Wednesday for a cousin's wedding weekend.
The Agrawals caught a red eye from the Bay Area and landed in Boston at roughly 1:15 a.m. The chaos of navigating an airport with bags and children catching up with them at the Terminal B rideshare pickup. The family jumped in an Uber only to realize a very important bag had been left behind.
"My husband called the police right away," Raka Agrawal told WBZ-TV. "They were able to find the bag and when he located the bag which was literally 15 minutes later, he noticed the bag was unzipped."
The Agrawals said that bag had about $70,000 worth of jewelry and a watch stolen out of it. Much of that jewelry had been passed down from generation to generation, a tradition in Indian culture.
"That is how they show their love and affection, it is through jewelry," said Raka. "I think people are getting wise to the cultural significance of jewelry just knowing that it is a custom in Indian culture of passing down jewelry from generation to generation."
Massachusetts State Police opened an investigation and used airport surveillance cameras to identify a person of interest. State Police said the suspect left the airport in a rideshare. Nearly a week to the hour, detectives were able to identify the suspect as a 47-year-old man from Norwood, along with each of the missing pieces of jewelry.
"We are still in shock," said Raka. "We are still overwhelmed because we received some great news. They were able to retrieve everything down to the boxes that these things were in and they had it displayed for us to go through every item one by one."
"[I am] Incredibly grateful. I have no idea, but we can only imagine the level of coordination this has taken," Vineet Agrawal said.
The Agrawal family took the moment to remind travelers to keep their guard up in and around airports. The family said they are generally hypervigilant in keeping track of their belongings but admit they let their guard down for a split second.
"Getting that phone call was just, it was a miracle," said Raka. "It was literally a miracle."