Jewel Thieves Cut Hole Through Wall, Into Safe Downtown
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - It's sounds like a movie plot.
A burglar drills through the wall of one building, into the neighboring jewelry store, and right into the back of a safe filled with cash and jewels.
Police say that appears to be what happened at Yuriy's Jewelry Store on Smithfield Street in Downtown Pittsburgh.
Jewelry, cash and coins were stolen from the safe.
"What was unique about this is there were holes in both the back of the safe, the wall and an opening into the adjoining building that is vacant," said Pittsburgh Police Spokeswoman Sonya Toler.
Sometime between the store closing Saturday at 4 p.m. and opening Monday morning, the thief tunneled through the wall between the jewelry store and the neighboring vacant building.
The path led right into the safe that housed the most valuable and irreplaceable jewelry, plus cash and coins.
None of the items taken belonged to customers.
Yuriy's Manager Becky Halvorson said the burglar appears to have drilled through the wall once and missing the safe. Then, the burglar drilled through a second time exactly where they needed to be to make a hole in the back of the safe.
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Halvorson believes the burglar has to be someone who was inside the store before.
"It was clearly someone who knew what they were doing. It was definitely planned," Halvorson said. "If evil people could put their minds to better uses, you know, it really truly is just disheartening."
And it's a heist that's definitely caught people's attention. Fellow store owners and managers on the same block of Smithfield Street are all talking about it.
"It sounds like a movie, like 'The Italian Job' or something like that," said Maclain Eardley from S.W. Randall Toyes across the street. "Very sort of unnerving that it could happen anywhere, but especially on the block."
Police are searching to see if there's security camera video in the area that may help in their investigation.
