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Posted: 7/9/2009 10:30:09 AM EDT
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Here is another one. This is the 2nd one here in 2 months. Same SOP break through roof and then safe with torch. Est $200k in Jewelry and $10k in cash. Check the video in the link.
http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/MI125466/ 
Police searching for jewelry store burglars HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (WSVN) –– Police are looking for thieves who broke into a South Florida store and stole thousands of dollars worth of cash and jewelry. "I was devastated. I started crying," said jewelry store owner, Silva Valdes. Police said the crooks broke into the Valdes Jewelry Store, by using a cutting torch to make a hole in the roof. After coming in through the roof, they torched a safe and made off with jewelry and cash. "Came down through the roof and down through the back. Before they came in, they cut the security wires to the security system, the cameras–– everything," said Valdes. The burglary occurred Wednesday along Taft Street and Northwest 69th Way. Police said the burglars walked right past the cases of necklaces and used a blow torch to break into the safe. "They took everything, over $200,000 worth of jewelry and $10,000 worth of cash. They took it all," said Valdes. The crooks may have put in quite a bit of work to burglarize the store, but not nearly as much as owner Ernesto Valdes, who has worked nine hour days, six days a week for 15 years at the store. "The business is down right now, plus this, that's a big toll," said Ernesto's brother, Rafael Valdes. If you have any information on this burglary, call Broward County Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS. Remember, you can always remain anonymous, and you may be eligible for a reward |
| The 1 minute mark shows the hole in the safe. That doesn't look like that great of a safe, at least for storing large amounts of jewlery. I saw thin steel with a thick liner, followed by thin steel. Sucks though. We had a jewlery robbery that followed the same pattern here not too long ago. |
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These jewelers are ALL going out of business as what's left of this country slips into the next Depression. Most of Florida is ground-zero.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see these are pretty much all inside jobs. It's no-brainer easy money if you don't mind risking insurance fraud. Nobody keeps 200k+ in valuables in a cheap-ass RSC garbage 'safe' like that! I've cut into just about every kind of free-standing safe there is. Although the picture is very poor you can easily tell that metal box was junk. I'd be curious if their insurance adjuster notices that too. For his cut of 20k I bet he doesn't. Somebody cutting through the roof isn't going to have prior knowledge of the tangled mess of security and video cabling in the ceiling without lots of prior inspection. In a business that old, the cabling would have been a total nightmare of current and old unlabled shit. It makes for good TV though and the stupid public assumes the guy's from "Heat" must have just robbed these poor people. I feel badly for these people losing their jobs and family businesses that have been prosperous in years past. This kind of fraud will continue, unabated though until the insurance companies refuse to pay or refuse to renew policies on existing clients. |
| It does seem suspicious that a jewelry store would hold $10,000 in cash overnight, on a Wednesday night. That's probably the limit of what they've got insurance for. Most responsible owners would use a bank's night drop, or go to the bank before it closes. I can't imagine that the owner did $10,000 in cash business between 5:00 PM and when he closed that night, and $10,000 seems like alot of cash to keep around for buying old jewelry. |
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I had a few thoughts:
1. If they're torching in, they'd be after gold and/or loose stones. The cash would get burned, wouldn't it? 2. How would they know which cables/wires to cut (unless they cut everything)? 3. While the torch-guy was doing his thing, why didn't his partner(s) clean the rest of the place out? 4. After reading the above theory about an inside job, my questions are easily answered. |
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Yeah the torch thing is a bit confusing. Even a good plasma cutter blows through a LOT of molten slag. If you look at the sheetmetal on that safe it couldn't be more than 10 gauge. Why torch the roof too? That'd be thin stuff too. Portable sawzalls and angle grinder would have worked just as quickly with less danger of adding arson to your rap sheet.
FWIW, I almost never use torches or plasma cutters for safes. There's just generally never a need for common residential/light commercial safes up to and including TL-30's. The smoke, fumes, and risk of fire is bad enough with abrasive cutting tools. We use plenty of water and still manage to char some stuff from time to time. |
| Pretty sure something happened here in Hoover, AL recently. The guys torched through the roof. Disabled everything. Then while they were in the process of cutting in to the safe one of the guys stepped out the back door for a smoke or something and the parking lot cleaner guy saw him and called the cops. Pretty sure they ended up getting caught. |
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Quoted:
Pretty sure something happened here in Hoover, AL recently. The guys torched through the roof. Disabled everything. Then while they were in the process of cutting in to the safe one of the guys stepped out the back door for a smoke or something and the parking lot cleaner guy saw him and called the cops. Pretty sure they ended up getting caught. atleast they were considerate enough to smoke outside... lol |
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