Published March 21, 2009

Cortina's loss from theft cut to $3.3m

It has recovered and identified 230 watches worth about $4.6m

By JAMIE LEE

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CORTINA Holdings has recovered almost 60 per cent of the maximum $7.9 million that it expected to lose after a stash of watches and thousands of dollars in cash went missing.

FOUND Among the watches recovered may include the expensive Vacheron Constantin Les Masques set

The company said yesterday that it has recovered and identified 230 watches worth about $4.6 million, after its former employee Jerry Ee turned himself in at the Singapore embassy in Bangkok this week. This reduces Cortina's maximum loss to $3.3 million. Some 386 watches and more than $27,000 cash went missing from the company's Raffles City Shopping Centre outlet between Christmas and Boxing Day last year.

BT understands that Cortina's general manager Jeremy Lim has spent the past few days in Thailand inspecting the watches found there. It is also believed that the recovered watches may include rarer and more valuable pieces that went missing, such as a Patek Philippe 3939 worth about $500,000 and a set of Vacheron Constantin Les Masques watches worth about the same.

Mr Ee, who arrived back in Singapore from Thailand on Thursday, is set to be charged this morning, a source told BT. He also faces a civil suit from Cortina.