[Ohio] Robbery alert

Hi all,

I wanted to post this alert to spread the word.

A fantastic shop in Cincinnati Ohio called The Fig Leaf was robbed
early Sunday morning.

The crook broke a window and entered, then went directly to a tall
display case pulling out each item one at a time, seeming to know
just what he wanted to steal. The robbery was captured on the store
video camera, but the man’s body, face and hands were disguised.

All the items he took are artisan/designer made, many of them one of
a kind in gold, with diamonds.

The Fig Leaf has a presence on facebook, you can see a few pictures
of what was taken.

If you hear any regarding this robbery, please contact
them through facebook…

We think he may try to sell the pieces for scrap, or sell to another
shop somewhere.

Thanks for any tips you may have, and stay safe this season!

Why would the store leave “gold and diamond” pieces in the showcase
when the store was not open? Why would it not be in the safe? I
would have to say that the store bears a good deal of the
responsibility in this case.

Unless the store has a huge walk in vault, it is not at all unusual
for alarger jewelery store to leave a fairly large amount of
merchandise in the show cases overnight, locking away the most
valuable. It is physically i= mpossible to store large volumes in the
type of safe most jewelery stores own, and it imposes a massive
amount of time to tear down, and then rese= t-up the store each day,
if every item is removed and locked away each night. For this reason
jeweler’s insurance carriers often specify a percentage of the $
value be locked away, and that the premises protected by state of
the art surveillance/protection.

Recently my employer suffered a very significant loss because of
this practice, and our “lazy” application of it. We knew we were
well protected, and within a mile of both the town and NY State
Police, so we let our guard down. @ 3 months ago now, our videos
captured three men smashing a small display window, one man
literally jumping through the falling glass and unlocking the door,
then the three spreading out with hammers and sacks. They only hit
the 6 cases closest to the door, and were out the door in less than
2 minutes. Police arrived 3 minutes after the initial hammer blow to
the window, but the burglers were already long gone!

Our losses were in the six figures, but could have been far worse,
had the three actually cased the store prior to their hitting us.
They passed over some very high end cases, and one fellow actually
wasted 40-45 seconds grabbing a case if silver beads. currently
popular, but hardly of any street value.

We have readjusted our procedures, thanks to our experience, and
upgraded many of our security techniques, but it remains completely
impossible to lock away every item of value each and every evening.
We also learned ways to make ourselves less likely a target, and
less exposed to major losses from such quick a smash and grab
robbery, should we ever become a target again.

Speaking of robberies…

Here’s an old timer’s tip.

If you have a false alarm at your store, odds are that you will be
robbed within a week. Note the MO of the guys below. They knew where
to go, and most importantly, how fast to work and get out of there.
I’ve worked in stores where the crooks would wait for after hours
and then throw a very heavy stone at the windows or rattle the doors
and then duck around the corner and observe how long it took the cops
to get there. They then know just how much time they have in the
store to smash cases etc. Also you can almost always tell when you
are being “cased”. When well dressed folks come in and look around at
the doors window, ceilings first before looking at the jewelry, you
know.

Have fun and make lots of jewelry and be safe out there.

Jo Haemer
www.timothywgreen.com

Speaking of robberies.... [snip] When well dressed folks come in... 

I’ve only been robbed one time at a retail store and the bad guy was
very well dressed and polite. (It was a snatch and grab…he was a
very fast runner too!)

If you have a false alarm at your store, odds are that you will be
robbed within a week. Note the MO of the guys below. They knew
where to go, and most importantly, how fast to work and get out of
there. I've worked in stores where the crooks would wait for after
hours and then throw a very heavy stone at the windows or rattle
the doors and then duck around the corner and observe how long it
took the cops to get there. They then know just how much time they
have in the store to smash cases etc. Also you can almost always
tell when you are being "cased". When well dressed folks come in
and look around at the doors window, ceilings first before looking
at the jewelry, you know. In our case none of the above occurred. 

All three men appear on video outside the store at times earlier
that day, walking past the store windows, but with cell phones,
coffee from the Starbucks next door, etc blocking their faces, but
it is noticeable in retrospect that they are looking up and around
for video surveillance. They appear on videos from no previous days,
and no false alarms occurred in the days or weeks prior to the smash
and grab.

It is pretty obvious from the choices of cases they did smash, that
no one entered the store to case the merchandise, either, or they
would not have passed up a showcase containing gold and diamond
jewelery to empty one full of sterling beads. We have been cased by
teams in the past, and are alert for such, but these guys did none of
the typical trial runs and casing jobs we are all alert for.

The investigators believe this was a prison trained, “2 minute
burglary” team, and they knew that by being in and out in just under
2 minutes there could be no response, even with State and town
police just a mile away.

They were not greedy, and did not even look into the next two cases,
in line and were not tempted to grab just a little more. When the 2
minute limit was approaching they turned as a team, and were gone.
Team work, and clock work.