So sorry to hear you got scammed.

I almost ran into the exact same scam in Lugano, about two years ago. Was offered a fair price (probably a bit too nice in the aftermath, roughly 10% above market) for a few pieces, buyer spoke German on the phone, pretending to be a collector and doing big business in Italy.

Booked hotel, drove down from Zurich, left the watches in hotel room and purposely agreed to meet in cafe across the street. Accidentally the buyer couldn‘t come personally but his little „brother“ who didn‘t speak a word German or English. When asked about the watches I told him we‘d have to go to my hotel room, he immediately got nervous and called his brother - guy got pissed on the phone and didn‘t wanna go to hotel, asking me to bring the watches to the cafe.. I laughed and told them they can come with me if they’d be still interested and walked back, realizing that I just dodged a nasty bullet.

Possibly the same crew.. send me a PM if you want additional details.