Friday, 26 Apr 2024

Caught on Video: Jewelry Store to the Stars Is Robbed by Armed Men in Disguises

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In an era of rampant cybercrime, the jewelry heist that took place in the diamond district in Manhattan on Sunday was decidedly old-school.

At about noon, three armed men apparently wearing disguises walked into a jewelry store, hogtied employees and absconded with high-end valuables in a dramatic scene that was captured on surveillance video, officials said.

On Monday, the police were still searching for the robbers responsible for holding up the store, Avianne & Co., a high-profile jewelry outpost known for selling glittering, diamond-heavy pieces to celebrity clientele, including the musicians Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber.

The store, on the bustling diamond-district block of West 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, remained closed on Monday afternoon as officers surveyed the crime scene for evidence and dusted for fingerprints.

Officials did not specify the value of what was stolen or say how many items were missing. Avianne’s owners and managers did not respond to requests for comment.

However, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said that the men stole numerous high-end watches and other pieces of jewelry.

The three robbers — one wearing a suit and a fedora, another donning a black bucket hat and the third sporting a red and black cloth on his head — posed as customers when they entered the store on Sunday, the police said.

Two of them appeared to be wearing wigs with braids, the law enforcement official said.

The man in the fedora told store employees that he was looking to buy a ring, the official said. He and two workers went to the store’s backroom to complete the purchase. Shortly after, at least one man in the showroom pulled out a gun.

Around the same time, in the backroom, the man in the fedora took out a silver handgun, according to the surveillance footage.

The other two robbers then stormed into the backroom, forced the workers to the floor and bound their limbs with duct tape and zip ties, the police said.

The surveillance footage shows two of the men shoving items into a duffel bag as store employees are on the ground. An open briefcase with luxury watches is shown sitting on a desk in the room.

In the background, security cameras can be seen recording footage that would later be released by the police.

The robbers fled, and the Police Department’s surveillance cameras on the street captured them trying to hail a yellow cab. None of the employees were seriously injured, the police said.

Jewelry store robberies remain prevalent across the United States, though the number of heists appears to have declined in recent years, according to John J. Kennedy, the president of the Jewelers’ Security Alliance, a trade association that tracks jewelry crimes for retailers and the police.

In the first six months of 2019, the alliance tracked 59 robberies at jewelry retailers nationwide, down from 105 in the same period last year, though Mr. Kennedy noted that the statistics were preliminary.

Gunpoint robberies, like the one at Avianne, tend to be less common than so-called smash-and-grab burglaries, in which thieves shatter display cases and take what they can before fleeing, Mr. Kennedy said.

“The laws if you are caught and convicted are much more severe if you have a firearm,” Mr. Kennedy explained.

He also said that robberies were “relatively infrequent” on West 47th Street despite a high concentration of jewelers in the area.

“It has very good police patrols,” Mr. Kennedy said. “It has an element of private security as well, and you have a lot of jewelers who are very sophisticated with respect to the issue of security.”

Employees at Jewelry Display of New York Inc., a second-floor store across the street from Avianne, said they had noticed three men lingering near the store on Thursday and Friday afternoons. One of the people, the employees said, appeared to be the man in the bucket hat.

“It felt like they were scoping the place out,” Jester Sanchez, 23, said.

Avianne caters to celebrity clientele. It has sold pieces to rappers like 2 Chainz, Lil Wayne and Ms. Minaj. It once cleaned a gold chain for Mr. Bieber and designed a custom 15-carat engagement ring for the singer Ciara.

Still, even with its celebrity customers and a large Instagram following, Avianne is a consumer showroom that attracts shoppers from all walks of life.

For Avianne and other jewelry stores, the risk that a potential customer might turn out to be a thief is part of the cost of doing business, Mr. Kennedy said.

“You’re a retailer,” he said. “So you’re going to let these people into your store.”

Ali Watkins and Aaron Randle contributed reporting.

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