Gang ‘tunnels’ into London store and steals around £500k worth of jewels
Written by News on 27/03/2019
A gang of burglars has reportedly “tunnelled” their way into an upmarket London store before stealing around £500,000 worth of jewels.
Police have said the “audacious” criminals broke through a wall to access the George Attenborough & Son jewellers on Fleet Street over the weekend.
The thieves are also reported to have painted a CCTV camera in a next-door bookmakers to cover their tracks.
A camera in a branch of William Hill was found to have been daubed with white paint after the raid.
The burglary may have taken place as thousands of competitors ran past for the London Landmarks Half Marathon.
Police were called just before 2am on Monday.
Detectives said a “quantity” of jewellery had been stolen but no arrests had been made.
The jewellery store was founded in 1843 and describes itself as “one of the final vestiges of Victorian England”.
It advertises items worth many tens of thousands of pounds on its website, including a diamond ring worth just under £100,000 and bracelets with price tags approaching £70,000.
The Met Police estimates the amount taken was worth around £500,000, but has not disclosed what the items are.
The Sun reported that the thieves had dug a tunnel to get inside the building but police have not confirmed this.
The newspaper also said the gang had broken in through a hidden passageway which linked the jeweller to another shop next door.
Another theory was that the burglars got into the main building through a fire escape, opening a door by reaching through a letterbox.
They could have spent up to two days inside as the jewellers was closed all weekend.
Detective Superintendent Simon Moring said: “This was an audacious burglary, and there are elements which appear to have been planned with some precision by the suspects.
“They broke through a wall in order to gain access to the store.”
He added: “It is nowhere near the sophistication of some previous burglaries dealt with by the Flying Squad, including high profile crimes such as the Hatton Garden burglary in 2015.
“A number of lines of enquiry are being considered.”
“We are not providing further information at present, and we are not disclosing details of what was stolen.”
The burglary happened only a short distance from the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit company, which was raided by a gang of thieves in April 2015.
Just weeks ago, alarm specialist Michael Seed became the 10th person convicted for this crime.
He was found guilty of conspiracy to burgle and conspiracy to handle the proceeds after £143,000 worth of jewels were found in his bedroom.
Of the £13.6m of property stolen in that burglary, only around one-third has been recovered.
(c) Sky News 2019: Gang ‘tunnels’ into London store and steals around £500k worth of jewels
