Nearly $1 Million in Jewelry, Furs Is Stolen

Thieves stole a truck loaded with nearly $1 million in jewelry, furs, historic documents and other high-priced merchandise from an Irvine hotel parking lot just hours before they were to have been sold at auction, police said Saturday.

It was the second robbery within a week for the victim, Alexander Mahban. On Monday, he lost $5 million in jewelry to thieves in San Diego.

“I wish they’d just put a bullet in my head. No insurance,” said Mahban, owner of the company that had planned to auction the goods at the Radisson Plaza Hotel.

Mahban arrived at the hotel Saturday to learn that one of three rental trucks had been stolen.

Among the stolen items, according to Mahban and his wife, Melinda, was an early 1800s letter from a French general to Napoleon Bonaparte, inscribed with Bonaparte’s brief, handwritten response. The letter, they said, was worth $175,000. Also stolen, Mahban said, was a letter written by former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which Mahban valued at $25,000.

The Irvine theft came just five days after the FBI opened an investigation into the theft from Mahban of $5 million in jewels, specially marked Rolex watches and other items at Lindbergh Field airport in San Diego.

Irvine Police Officer Henry Boggs said there is no indication that the two crimes were committed by the same people.

In the latest theft, three rental trucks traveled Friday from Las Vegas to Southern California. Two of the trucks went to the Radisson Hotel. The third stopped at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, where it picked up a load of furs.

By 10 p.m. Friday, all three trucks were in the Radisson Hotel parking lot. Between then and 12:30 a.m. Saturday, the truck that had picked up the furs was stolen.The estimated wholesale value of the stolen items is $970,700.