Thief Returns Fake Ksh 14 Million Lupitas Dress

A gown worn the actress to the 2015 Oscars and stolen from her hotel, was returned on Friday after the thief discovered the 6,000 pearls on the dress were fake.

The dress had valued at $150,000 (Ksh 13.5 Million) at the time of the theft. The dress was said to have 6,000 real Akoya cultured pearls sewn in.

Nyong’o designed the dress with Calvin Klein’s creative director, Francisco Costa.

The Los Angeles Times reports that an anonymous caller told the police they had dropped the dress off at the hotel just 48 hours after it went missing.

The dress was stolen when the Kenyan actress was out of her room at the London Hotel in West Hollywood, Los Angeles.

GARMENT DISTRICT

The TMZ website said the thief took the Calvin Klein dress from Nyong’o’s room on Wednesday after finding the door open.

The Kenyan actor had worn the dress to Sunday’s Academy Awards in one of the most commented looks of the night.

The thief and others removed two pearls from the dress and took them to the garment district in Los Angeles where it was discovered that they were fake. This is according to TMZ.

The thief then took the dress back to the London West Hollywood hotel and left it in a garment bag inside a rubbish bag in a bathroom and later tipped off TMZ on its location.

TMZ told the LA county sheriff’s department in West Hollywood which was investigating the theft.

The website has shown grainy footage of an unidentified person opening the bag and finding a white dress.

Sheriff’s department spokeswoman Guillermina Saldana said officers were “in the process of confirming” the story.

By Maureen Murimi

Source: The Guardian, TMZ and Los Angeles Times