Burglars pulled off a massive heist at a Los Angeles jewelry store, drilling through several layers of concrete to steal millions in merchandise.
The intricate break-in occurred over the weekend at Love Jewels, a family-owned business in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles; investigators believe the perpetrators dug a tunnel beginning in the neighboring abandoned theater they had likely been constructing for weeks.
“They probably went in there every night, slowly dug it until there was enough room for them to get in,” the store owner’s son told NBC4 Los Angeles.
The family claims that the thieves stole over $20 million in merchandise, taking them for everything they had with no insurance.
“We’re penniless, literally penniless,” said Rita, the store’s owner.
Officials claim the thieves stole $10 million in merchandise.
Thieves cleared display cases at Love Jewels, Reina de Oro and got away with millions of dollars in gold and jewels from the store Sunday evening into Monday morning. Burglars tunneled into the Broadway shop through multiple reinforced walls, police said, and made off with all the products from the business. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times via Getty)
The son explained the risks associated with the gold business.
“In the gold business, you reinvest everything so all our money was what was in the safe,” the son said. “They were able to disable the cameras, disable the alarm and they were able to get into both the safes. They probably had five, six hours in here.”
The owners said the thieves likely cracked their safe in just a few hours.
LAPD Capt. Raul Jovel, who oversees the department’s central division, said the thieves tunneled through several layers of concrete.
“They went for some really thick old walls. They went into one small room and then through a second wall,” Jovel said. “This was serious digging.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, the jewelry store has been a “source of bling for rappers, artists, and some gangsters,” with a social media account boasting “images of personal necklace tributes, gold Rolex watch straps, diamond-encrusted miniature AK-47s, M-4 trinkets, and enormous racks of gold chains.”
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