Beverly Hills. A sleek showroom lined with Rolexes, Pateks and Richard Milles. Outside, a red Lamborghini idles beneath the California sun.
Cameras click as a sharply dressed man greets clients with a smile. He calls himself the self-styled “Timepiece Gentleman.”
But behind the polish and Instagram fame was a darker story: one of trust betrayed and millions laundered through luxury timepieces.
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Anthony Farrer, 36, built a reputation as a trusted luxury watch dealer in Los Angeles, using the name ‘The Timepiece Gentleman’ for his Beverly Hills consignment store and social media brand.
In reality, from late 2022 through 2023 he ran a sprawling fraud/Ponzi scheme. Dozens of wealthy clients shipped him Rolexes, Patek Philippes and other high-end watches to sell “on consignment”.
This means Farrer would display the watches in his store or online and take a standard ~5% commission.
But had he done that, you would not be reading about him in Polar Insider.
Instead of holding their trust, he held onto their money.
Over and over, Farrer took clients’ watches or funds and vanished. He sold consigned watches and kept the cash, never sending proceeds back to the owners. He took advance payments for rare watches and never delivered them, sometimes only sending a different watch (often one borrowed from another client) to stave off suspicion.
He even used clients’ watches as collateral on personal loans – unbeknownst to the owners. In short, every sale or purchase he promised became a cover for filling his own wallet.
By mid-2023, Farrer had scammed over 40 victims and siphoned roughly $5.7 million. A U.S. Attorney’s press release summarized the long con: “Rather than remitting [consignment] funds… he kept the proceeds for himself,” funding a “lavish” lifestyle of Lamborghinis, Ducati motorcycles, luxury apartments and even Las Vegas gambling excursions.
He posted daily on YouTube and Instagram where he often showed off new watches even as clients were left empty-handed.
Law enforcement finally caught up when irate owners reported never receiving sales proceeds or their own watches back. Farrer abruptly closed his store in August 2023 and hit the road for a “look-at-me” lifestyle, before federal agents arrested him in November 2023.
