Cameras captured the moment a Beverly Hills jewelry store lost millions of items in a robbery in broad daylight Tuesday afternoon.
The incident took place at the Luxury Jewels of Beverly Hills store on the corner of South Beverly Drive and Charleville Boulevard around 2:00 pm.
Authorities said the five arrived in a stolen car but left after fleeing in another unidentified car.
The video shows a group of five people who, according to police, smashed a shop window with sledgehammers. They then left with a few items.
Some of the scammers were seen wearing hoodies and sweatpants, and some were wearing surgical masks.
The store was left with glass covering the sidewalk below and a gaping hole in the windshield.
On Tuesday, a jewelry store in Beverly Hills was attacked by robbers who are still at large.
The video shows a group of five people who, according to police, smashed a shop window with sledgehammers.
The store was left with glass covering the sidewalk below and a gaping hole in the windshield.
Luxury jewels of Beverly Hills on the corner of South Beverly Drive and Charleville Boulevard.
Peter Sedgi, the shop owner, told ABC7LA that the items seized were worth between $3 million and $5 million, with the necklace alone worth nearly $500,000.
Sedgi added that he thought he heard gunshots and went outside with a pistol.
“It literally sounded like gunshots, so I told my employees, I yelled, ‘Everybody on the floor,'” Sedgi said.
Employees pressed the store’s panic button, and Sedgi waited for the noise to subside before heading outside.
Wesley Aphramian, who owns a business in the neighborhood, told reporters that he tried to stop the suspect before he fled.
“I look outside, I see five guys with sledgehammers, axes, hammers, knocking on the window,” Aframyan said. “And you know, we are a jewelry store, they are a jewelry store. We are good friends with them. They are very good people. I just reacted and tried to stop them.”
He said he managed to hit one of the robbers and take some of the watches they were trying to take.
Recently, theft has become a statewide problem in California, and the trend has spread from San Francisco to the Los Angeles area.
One of the robbers is clearly using a sledgehammer in an attempt to rob a jewelry store.
According to the store owners, the robbers carried away goods worth between $3 million and $5 million.
The owners clean up after a robbery at a Beverly Hills jewelry store while five men are on the loose after smashing a window with a sledgehammer on double tempered glass.
Peter Sedgi (left), owner of Luxury Jewels of Beverly Hills, details the damage to his store.
The robbers arrived in a stolen Long Beach SUV and then fled in another vehicle before one of them fell to the ground and some of the stolen items were recovered.
Wesley Aphramian, owner of a nearby shop, said he managed to get a couple of watches back from the robbers in an attempt to stop them.
Rogue gangs of criminals carry out brazen robberies and mayhem, attacking high-end stores such as Louis Vuitton and Burberry, as well as national chains such as Walgreens and CVS.
Walgreens said last year that retail theft in San Francisco was five times the chain average and security costs were 46 times the chain average, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Grand theft rates in California’s liberal bastion rose 19% in late February compared to the same period last year, according to the latest crime data available.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has vowed to crack down on retail thieving gangs despite a controversial 2014 law, Proposition 47, that bars prosecutors from bringing felony charges against suspects who steal less than $950 worth of merchandise.
According to the city’s own statistics, crime was up about eight percent from the city of Los Angeles’ already high rates last year through March 19. Robberies are up four percent.