Austin Jewel Thieves Run Off With Major Bling

Anthony Nak, the uber-chic jewelers whose flagship store opened in Austin back in 2003, were carjacked this past weekend. The thieves made off with thirteen pieces of Tanzanite -- a nearly extinct stone from Tanzania, Africa -- set in platinum and gold jewelry. Ten of the pieces were recovered earlier this week from a local pawn shop.

Tanzanite, for the majority of us who can't even afford to google it, is a precious blue-violet gemstone 1,000 times rarer than diamonds, and can be found only in one place on earth: at the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, East Africa. All told, the loot was worth over $275,000, with each piece commanding an average retail price on par with a fancy Daewoo -- little wonder, then, that Nak caters to the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Angelina Jolie, J.Lo and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Last year, owners Anthony Camargo and Nak Armstrong flew to Washington to custom fit the Bush twins with fancy baubles for daddy Dubya's inauguration party.

* Photo by rightee on flickr