Stolen truck used in ¥10 million jewelry store smash-and-grab

Smash, grab: Thieves used a truck early Monday to smash their way into the Ebisu Jewelry Shop in Kobe before making off with some million worth of goods. KYODO PHOTO

And just a few months ago in Japan… a similar scene, more than familiar…

on 7th April 2009

KOBE (Kyodo) A stolen truck was used in a predawn smash-and-grab jewelry heist Monday in Kobe, police said.

The truck was slammed backward into the Ebisu Jewelry Shop in Chuo Ward at around 4:40 a.m., the police said. The suspects smashed display cases and stole ¥10 million worth of jewelry.

The store’s safe was untouched. The theft took two minutes to pull off, police said.

A passerby saw three men driving away in the truck, which was later found abandoned on a street about 200 meters southwest of the store. The police said the truck had been reported stolen from a local company.

|Read More >>

Smash and dash at Mito jewelry shop

MITO, Ibaraki Pref. (Kyodo) A stolen car was rammed into a jewelry store in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, early Monday and around ¥10 million worth of jewelry was stolen, police said. Officers rushed to the store at around 4 a.m. after its alarm went off and found the car with its engine still running having been driven through the store shutter and a glass door, the police said. Six glass cases had been broken into and some 85 items of jewelry, including rings and necklaces, were taken, they said.

ref : Japan Times Online

6 Arrested In Jewelry Heist in Ohio

Tuesday, April 7, 2009 2:45 PM
Updated: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 7:06 PM

Investigators look over the jewelry merchant's SUV after Friday night's robbery in Westerville.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A collaboration of law enforcement agencies that included Westerville police has arrested six people in New Jersey in connection with last week’s robbery of a jewelry merchant, 10TV’s Angela An reported.

Detectives from the Westerville Police Division traveled to the East Coast late Sunday night and assisted in making the arrests on Monday.

Although investigators confirmed that those arrested all had California addresses, their identities were not immediately released, An reported.

|Read More >>

|Watch Video >>

The Perfect Crime

A police officer on a motorbike drives past the main entrance to Berlin's iconic Kaufhaus des Westens department store

DNA evidence from a multimillion-euro jewelry heist in Berlin leads to twins with a criminal record, but since the evidence could point to either one, German law says that neither can be convicted:

German law stipulates that each criminal must be individually proven guilty. The problem in the case of the O. brothers is that their twin DNA is so similar that neither can be exclusively linked to the evidence using current methods of DNA analysis. So even though both have criminal records and may have committed the heist together, Hassan and Abbas O. have been set free.”Both brothers have stolidly refused to comment ever since their arrests on February 11. Since no further evidence has become available, police cannot detain them.

more on >

Despite Evidence, Twins Charged in Heist Go Free – Time.com

Hassan and Abbas O. walk free after identical DNA foils heist case – Timesonline.uk

Twins Suspected in Spectacular Jewelry Heist Set Free – Spiegel Online