A gown worn to the Oscars by actor Lupita Nyong’o, 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 been said to be worth $150,000 (£100,000) at the time of the theft – but that was when the official line was that it had 6,000 real Akoya cultured pearls sewn in.
The TMZ website said the thief took the Calvin Klein dress from Nyong’o’s room on Wednesday after finding the door ajar.
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 they were told they were not real, 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, then tipped off TMZ about 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.