Jewel thieves blew open a safe door without attracting the suspicions of a security company and made off with jewellery worth R5-million in Durban, police said on Monday.
Police spokesperson Inspector Michael Read said the owner of the Jewel Exchange in central Durban arrived at his store in Durban’s Anton Lembede Street (formerly Smith Street) shortly after 8am to find that his safe door had been blown from its mountings and the jewellery taken.
Read said that the alarm had been active and the security company had been alerted to some sort of activity on Saturday evening.
However, an investigation by the security company’s staff apparently indicated that the alarm had been false and all was in order at the store.
Shop owner Peter Booysen said the thieves may have waited until a nearby Salisbury Arcade was closed and then accessed the shop through a closed back door leading to the toilets.
He said the thieves had blown in the door of the walk-in safe, without damaging anything else.
He said a second unexploded device was left at the shop and the police’s bomb squad were called in to deactivate it.
Read said that commercial explosives were used in the robbery.
”They didn’t break a single window. These guys were pros. They knew what they were doing,” said Booysen.
At the end of January this year, the shop was also targeted by thieves, who, when they fled, dumped a part of their R250 000 loot in the Durban harbour.
The police’s search-and-rescue unit fished out jewellery worth R60 000 and three of the thieves who jumped into the harbour in a bid to escape the police.
Read said police did not believe the two incidents were linked.
Booysen is offering a R200 000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and successful conviction. — Sapa