In the early hours of Monday 5 May, Brigitte and Tony Zollo received a phone call from their security service alerting them that movement had been detected in the family-owned jewellery store, Casa D’Oro Jewellers.
Although the pair were in Sydney at the time of the call, they were able to check in on the store via an app that connected their CCTV system to an iPad – it was this technology that allowed them to watch as the brazen intruder broke in and stole jewellery valued at about $5,000.
“He took about half a dozen pieces of silver [jewellery] and smashed up half the shop,” Brigitte Zollo told Jeweller.
“It was quite vindictive,” she explained, adding, “I think what happened was he went to a certain cabinet where wedding and engagement rings are usually displayed in the front window, looked underneath, perhaps thinking that’s where they’re stored at night, found there was nothing under there and got very angry and started throwing things around.”
Zollo said that police were contacted as soon as the couple realised the store had been broken into but that the thief had left before authorities arrived. The intruder has not been caught, with Zollo adding that she has not “heard or seen anything” from police.
Casa D’Oro was also robbed 18 months earlier. In that incident, the retail outlet was fire-damaged and consequently rebuilt.
Neither incident, however, prevented the store, located on the King William Road fashion precinct, from getting back to business. Zollo said that they were trading again one week following the first incident 18 months ago and operating one day after the most recent theft.
WATCH VIDEO