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Brazen thieves snatch $400K worth of pearls

0 Comments | Winnipeg Free Press, Oct 7, 2009 | by Rollason, Kevin

Travelling salesman not insured for loss

A travelling jewelry salesman from Vancouver had almost $400,000 worth of pearls snatched out of the locked trunk of his rental car earlier this week.

Winnipeg police are treating the case as a random smash and grab by thieves who broke into a vehicle and got lucky.

But a local jewelry store owner says heists of travelling jewelry salespeople is becoming more of a problem in Winnipeg.

And the national jewelry crime watchdog — Jewellers Vigilance Canada, or JVC — says the problem has been rampant for a couple of years in Ontario and most of Western Canada.

The salesman, who didn’t want his name published, said he had been showing his wares at Winnipeg jewelry stores on Monday when he decided to have dinner at a downtown restaurant at Broadway and Hargrave Street.

The salesman said he left two pieces of luggage — each filled with pearls — in the trunk and picked a table by a window where he could see the vehicle. He said he did this because each case weighed about 27 kilograms.

“I was watching the car the whole time,” he said on Tuesday. “It must have only taken 30 seconds to do. Somewhere in the back of my mind I picture a vehicle stopped by the car to block my view.

“I came out and the trunk was closed. Nothing was untoward. I opened the trunk to check, just like you check to see numerous times to see if your wallet is there, and it was empty.”

The salesman said the pearls are insured, but only if he’s with them, not if he has left them unattended in a vehicle.

“I know that from before, unfortunately,” he said.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. It happened five years ago. All I could do was start the business again.

“I don’t know what I’ll do this time.”

But the salesman, who says he is offering “a substantial” reward for information to get the pearls back, disagrees with Winnipeg police, who believe this was a random crime.

“It was not random. I think they followed me,” he said.

A Winnipeg police spokesman verified they got the break-in call on Monday at about 6:30 p.m.

Police said they have no suspects and consider it a random crime. Without more information, police couldn’t quickly find information on any other jewelry salesperson heists in Winnipeg in recent weeks.

But an owner of a local jewelry store, who didn’t want to be identified, said there have been at least a couple of similar incidents in the last year here.

John Lamont, director of the JVC’s crime prevention program, said the targeting of jewelry salespeople has been a problem in the United States for years, but only in the last two or three years has it crossed the border to parts of Canada.

“It is rampant from Ontario to B.C. — it really is a problem,” Lamont said. “Winnipeg seems to be a new area — the heat is on in the other cities like Toronto and Calgary.

“They wait outside a jewelry store and they start following a salesman. They’ll follow them for days and days and days and wait for them to leave the car.”

Lamont said the robberies started with gangs from South America roaming through the United States, but he believes the crimes in Canada are being committed by local thieves
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