An owner of a jewelry store in Longwood lost nearly half a million dollars after burglars broke into the store on Monday.
Albert Pagan, who owns Certified Jewelry Design on St. Laurent Street in Longwood, told Fox 35 that the thieves broke into his store early morning with a heist that almost sounds exactly like the plot of Ocean’s 11.
Pagan told WKMG-6 that the thieves scaled the building next door called Long’s Custom Tailoring and cut a hole in the roof in order to access the security system of the jewelry store.
“Once they surveyed everything and saw they couldn’t access the store, they came here and cut a hole,” Pagan said.
WKMG-6 reports that Pagan has owned his jewelry store for quite some time and has experienced robbery attempts in the past but none compared to this level of expertise and thought.
Seems like these burglars truly did not want to give up as they cut a hole through the side wall to the building and even into the bathroom to see if anything captured their attention.
Despite the motion and heat detectors in the store, the burglars were able to maneuver their way around and take $400k worth of jewelry as Pagan said to WESH 2 News that they were able to disable one of the cameras and stayed low to avoid setting off the motion detectors.
“We’re not a $10 million jeweler,” Pagan said. “To think they are still going to come after your brick-and-mortar mom-and-pop businesses. I just don’t know.”