Taipei  - A Taiwan watch thief has been arrested after sending the stolen expensive watches to their owner to estimate their value, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Tsai Chin-hsin, 37, broke into a house on December 28 in Hsinchu, west Taiwan, and made off with nine watches and some jewellery, the China Times reported.

Believing the watches might be quite expensive, he asked an associate identified by his surname, Chuang, to take the stolen timepieces to a watch shop in Hsinchu to be appraised.

The nine watches were all expensive pieces, including a limited- edition EPOS, a Swiss mechanical watch valued at 70,000 Taiwan dollars (2,000 US dollars). The jewellery was valued at a total of 200,000 Taiwan dollars (6,000 US dollars).

There are dozens of watch shops in Hsinchu, but the watch shop Chuang visited on Sunday was run by the man whose home Tsai had burglarized, the paper said.

When the watch shop owner saw the nine watches, he recognized them and called police, who questioned Chuang and eventually arrested Tsai. (dpa)