A 37-year-old man suspected to be involved in two cases of theft from pawn shops was arrested on Wednesday.

A police statement on Friday said that the suspect entered a pawnshop along Holland Drive requesting to view two luxury watches on display. He told staff there he was interested in purchasing them and would return shortly. An hour later, the staff member handed over two watches worth about $29,000 for him to view again. He bolted off with the watches and left in a vehicle.

After ground investigations, police arrested the suspect around Eu Tong Sen Street on March 20.

The police recovered one of the watches and a gold bar worth about $2,300 believed to have been stolen from a goldsmith shop in Bukit Merah Central in February.