Police believe seven suburban Sydney jewellery robberies that have snared around $3 million worth of stock may be connected. The thieves typically stake out high-end jewellery stores and wait for jewellery sales representatives, then trail them in non-descript vehicles before robbing them, often violently.“Many salesmen carry their merchandise in certain bags which this gang identify," Detective Inspector Damian Beaufils from the Robbery and Serious Crime Squad told The Telegraph. "They then carry out surveillance on the target and wait until they are vulnerable and strike. That can be in a carpark, motel or even their home residence."
One robbery was reported at a jewellery salesman’s home in Killara, where a man was repeatedly assaulted, while two Hong Kong salesmen were robbed twice in Haberfield over six weeks. Last month, Jeweller reported on two suburban Sydney robberies that may also have been undertaken by the same gang.
The robberies bear a striking resemblance to the thefts that occurred in Auckland last year. The Kiwi robberies involved Colombian travelers on American and Mexican passports using hire cars to trail jewellery sales people to their hotels or homes before robbing them.
“These incidents are nearly identical to the New Zealand robberies,” Beaufils told Jeweller. “It involves people that came out of South America following their targets around. I'm only assuming there is a large cartel at work, and they are sending the jewellery back overseas.”
Police believed the thieves may have developed their own information on diamond and gem traders over several years.
Beaufils said that the spree of supplier robberies was part of what appeared to be a growing trend of increasing jewellery robberies in the state.
“If you had asked me five months ago, I would have said no,” he said. “But lately we've identified a few jewellery robberies. There has been progress with some, we’ve made arrests in relation to one the other week that involved a chainsaw. Jewellery robberies weren't common five, six months ago, but it's on the rise.”