Thieves Steal $6M of Jewelry in New York on New Year’s Eve
January 03, 17
(IDEX Online) – Three burglars waited for the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve to pull off a heist while 7,000 police officers were on duty just blocks away in Times Square, according to media reports.
The three men broke into a West 36th Street jewelry wholesaler at 12:01 a.m. Sunday in what appears to be an inside job. Police said the thieves without doubt planned the heist to coincide with the first minutes of New Year's Day.
They stole around $6 million in gems and have not been apprehended yet.
The burglars were filmed by CCTV inside Gregg Ruth, a commercial jewelry store known for its rare yellow and pink diamonds. Surveillance film showed one of the robbers, a bearded white male in a hood without a mask, looking into the camera.
The thieves entered through a freight entrance to the sixth floor business and then used a hammer and crow bar to break a lock to get into a room containing four safes, reports said.
They took diamond-set and 18K gold bracelets, earrings and necklaces from two of the safes which were either open or to which the burglars knew the combination. They put the jewelry in backpacks and made their getaway.
CCVT film shows one of the suspects talking on a cell phone while he is opening the safe, perhaps receiving the combination from a fourth person, according to a New York Post report.
The three men then escaped down a stairwell in the 16-story office tower.