That Viral “$2.4 Million Rolex Looting” Story? It Never Happened

On Monday, at 3 a.m., a Rolex store in downtown Manhattan was ransacked. The glass windows were smashed in, a vitrine built to elegantly display the world’s finest watches was shattered, and $2.4 million of merchandise was reportedly stolen. Two suspects were detained with stolen merchandise. In the process of making an arrest, a male officer fell through a glass door and tumbled down the stairs. A police officer shared his harrowing description of the aftermath: “The Rolex store is empty. They stole like $2.4 million in Rolexes.” Or so went the version of events reported in The New York Post on Monday night. Except, for starters, there is no “Rolex store” on Greene Street, as the Post wrote. The store in question is the New York branch of Watches of Switzerland—an authorized Rolex dealer, but by no stretch of the imagination a Rolex store. On top of that, store representatives deny that anything at all was stolen, and report that the damage was instead very minimal. The discrepancy between the story and the denial is the subject of a tweet shared almost 90,000 times. The Post did not respond to a request for comment. Read more at GQ.