Police see link in jewel heists’ similar tactics
Posted on Saturday, June 28, 2008
Diamond heists in Pine Bluff and Nashville, Tenn., this week appear to be related because of the quick, choreographed robbery methods, Pine Bluff police said Friday.
In both cases, two masked men blocked jewelry carriers’ rental cars in parking lots, slashed their tires, smashed windows and stole $ 500, 000 worth of diamonds from cases in the vehicles.
“They knew exactly what they were doing,” said Arless Hudgins, deputy chief of the Pine Bluff Police Department.
According to Pine Bluff police, two men wearing black hoods followed carrier Yair Gavrielle, 47, of Los Angeles on Thursday to the Oak Park Village Shopping Center on 28 th Street in the Jefferson County town.
As Gavrielle pulled his rental car into a parking space near B&J Jewelers at 1 p. m., the bandits pulled behind him in a silver sport utility vehicle, blocking Gavrielle, police said.
The two jumped out, Hudgins said, and slashed one of the tires on the left side of Gavrielle’s vehicle, then smashed his driver’s side window.
The men then grabbed Gavrielle’s keys, opened the vehicle’s trunk and stole a case containing the diamonds, Hudgins said.
They also scuffled with Gavrielle, cutting him in the back with a knife and stealing diamonds the carrier hid in his shoes, the officer said.
A similar skirmish happened in the Nashville robbery, leading police to believe they were related, Hudgins said.
Gavrielle told police it was a common practice for jewelry carriers to conceal gems in their shoes and socks.
“He’s very careful,” B&J Jewelry owner Mae Abrams said of Gavrielle. “There was no way he could get away. It happened in public at 1 o’clock. Isn’t that scary ?” Abrams said she’s considering installing a locking chamber device in the front of her store that provides more security and allows carriers safe, protected access to drop jewels.
“They’ve done this before,” Hudgins said of the robbers. “They were professionals. Within 30 seconds of stopping the car, they were done and gone.” About 8 p.m. Tuesday, salesman Shahab Ebrahimi, 49, of New York was robbed of diamonds in Tennessee as he parked his car at the Quality Inn hotel on Brick Church Pike in north Nashville, said Don Aaron, a spokesman with the Nashville Police Department.
Two masked men smashed Ebrahimi’s car window and stole a briefcase. They drove off in a dark four-door Pontiac Grand Prix, witnesses told police.
Aaron said the robbers probably knew Ebrahimi was carrying a large amount of jewels and had followed him to Nashville. Ebrahimi flew from New York to Memphis, rented a car and made sales calls in Knoxville, Sevierville and Morristown, Tenn., before driving to Nashville on Tuesday night.
Two Dallas diamond salesmen were robbed in front of a west Little Rock jewelry store March 14, 2005. One robber was killed during a police chase; two others escaped. Little Rock police said they believed the robbers were members of a South American gang that targeted traveling jewelry salesman who delivered gems to retailers.
Police said the bandits who robbed the carriers in Pine Bluff and Nashville this week all spoke Spanish.
Robberies with similar methods are common in the South, said Janisue Rigel, a spokesman for the Arkansas Jewelers Association in The Woodlands, Texas. The association oversees commercial jewelry operations in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana.
“They [robbers ] have such a technical knowledge in knowing where the sales representatives are,” Rigel said Friday.
“They all do the same thing; it’s the same group who seem to do this,” she said.
The association has warned businesses to alert carriers about the robberies and caution them.
“They use knives rather than guns, and they do it in broad daylight,” Rigel said. “They’re just getting better and better at this.”
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