Brittany M. Prince

Joshua Schroder

ERIK KELLAR / Daily News

With their brilliant metallic sheen, koi are often mistaken for overgrown goldfish. But koi are actually carp, and their story — like all good fish tales — is full of surprises.

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Other than some surveillance footage, Naples investigators didn’t have much evidence as to who may have stolen nearly $3,000 worth of Japanese fish from the Driftwood Garden Center in mid-April.

When employees arrived at the store, 5051 Ninth St. N., on the morning of April 18, they found four Japanese koi and an American koi missing from store’s blue tanks.

The bright orange and white Japanese fish were each valued at $650, while the domestic fish was about $250, Naples police reported.

An officer reviewed the surveillance footage with store employees and began to take fingerprints, said Craig Hazelett, whose family owns the garden center.

It was then that three people who would help solve the case walked through the door.

“One of our assistant managers came down and said the people we had just seen on the tape were back in the store,” Hazelett said.

Not only that, but a Chevy Avalanche visible in the security tape was in the parking lot, Hazelett said.

“The guy who was with them was the guy who was buying (the fish),” Hazelett said. “He was coming to confirm that they were actually $650 fish.”

The two burglars from the video were identified as Brittany M. Prince and Joshua A. Schroder, both 21-year-olds from Lehigh Acres. Both appeared to be “very nervous,” according to arrest reports.

They arrived with the owner of the Chevy, later identified as Kevin Dinger, 3454 Dorado Way.

On May 1, Naples Detective Seth Finman met with Dinger at his home, where the stolen koi were swimming in his koi pond, reports said. Hazelett drove to Dinger’s home and recovered the fish.

Dinger told Schroder to steal as many koi as he could, and that he would pay him for the fish, Schroder told police. Dinger told investigators he purchased the fish from Schroder for $800, police reported.

Dinger said that early on April 18, he drove Schroder and Prince in his Chevy to the garden center to verify they knew where the Koi were, reports said. Schroder and Prince returned around 2 a.m. in Prince’s Hyundai and parked behind the Hilton next to the store. The two jumped the business’s fence.

Surveillance video shows Schroder walking around inside the business about 2:15 a.m., and then exiting. About ten minutes later, the video shows Schroder and Prince enter the business with a cooler and a net, reports said.

They left about five minutes later.

Dinger told police he lent Schroder and Prince the cooler to put the fish in.

On Wednesday Finman arrested Prince. She told investigators she was not a thief, and while being shown surveillance footage reiterated that she didn’t steal anything.

When the investigator asked Prince why she was in the business after hours, she said she couldn’t remember and must have been in a coma, reports said. On Thursday police arrested Schroder, who admitted to burglarizing the garden center.

Both Prince and Schroder were charged with burglary, petty theft and four counts of grand theft. As of Friday, Dinger had not been charged with a crime.

“The investigation isn’t closed,” Naples police spokesman Tom Weschler said. “They are investigating some other angles as well.”

Hazelett has made security improvements to the store. He said he was amazed the suspects came back to the store the very next morning.

“We couldn’t believe it,” he said. “It helped us catch them.”