A midtown jewelry wholesaler was hit by burglars over the New Year's Eve weekend—and it's believed the suspects deliberately struck because police would be focused on Times Square. A source told the Post, "They laid in wait until the ball dropped."
The burglary occurred at KGK Holdings, located at 70 West 36th Street. Police sources told NBC New York the burglars hid out inside the building for hours leading up to midnight, entering through a freight entrance.
Two of the three male suspects can been seen on surveillance video using a pry bar and hammer to enter the business—one even looks up at the camera—and police say they stole jewelry valued at approximately $6,000,000 from two safes. No one was injured, and they fled via the stairs.
Sources tell the NY Post that the safes were either already open or had combinations known to the suspects, who wore gloves to remove "diamond-encrusted and 18 karat gold bracelets, earrings and necklaces... The footage shows one of the suspects talking on a cell phone while he is opening the safe, perhaps receiving the combination from a fourth person."
A building worker said, "It’s weird to me that they randomly tried that floor in this building. How would somebody know to come here? That’s real fishy... It definitely seems like an inside job."
KGK Holdings owns high-end jewelry brand Gregg Ruth, whose website says it specializes in "Fancy Color Diamonds and Important Colored Stones" and "quickly became known as an industry leader in Yellow and Pink Diamond center stone pieces and helped to popularize these rare Diamonds... A Gregg Ruth colored stone piece, whether it be a pendant valued at $1,000.00 or a necklace valued at $150,000.00 is instantly recognizable by its bright and highly saturated gemstones."
Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.
