MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A duo “ransacked” a high-end store at a five-star Miami Beach hotel and stuffed nearly $2 million worth of Hermès handbags into garbage cans before driving off early Wednesday morning, but officers were able to arrest at least one of the suspects before the day was over, according to police.
The daring heist happened just after 2:45 a.m. at Wrist Aficionado, located at The Setai hotel at 2001 Collins Ave. on South Beach, authorities said.
Police said surveillance video showed a man wearing black pants and a yellow reflective raincoat getting out of a stolen work van, popping the lock of the business, then going back to the van.
An arrest report states that Eduardo Travieso Garcia, 45, of southwest Miami-Dade, was then seen getting out of the van and bringing a “large gray garbage bin” to the front door. The other man brought another garbage bin to the front and placed it outside, police said.
According to police, the two got back in the van, then came back, brought both garbage bins into the store and went to town, running out of the store with the bins filled to the brim with at least 60 Hermès Birkin bags, with a total value of about $1.8 million. The bags typically retail for at least five figures a piece.
They put the bins in the van, then one of the men got in the van and Garcia got into an orange Hyundai Santa Fe parked in a nearby lot and the pair took off, police said.
Authorities were able to use license plate reader data to identify both vehicles. Authorities in Hillsborough County had been looking for the Santa Fe in connection with a March 9, 2023 Hillsborough County jewelry store heist “with almost the exact (same) modus operandi,” the arrest report states.
Garcia was the registered owner of the Santa Fe and detectives went to his house in the Olympia Heights area to bring him to police headquarters Wednesday evening, police said.
Police said Garcia gave a “full confession” during an interview with detectives.
Garcia, charged with first-degree grand theft, burglary and unlawful use of a communications device, was being held in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $100,000 bond.
A judge ordered he be held on house arrest if he posts bond.
The arrest report doesn’t state whether authorities identified his alleged accomplice or whether police recovered any of the bags.