The NYPD released photos Wednesday of a robbery crew that targeted jewelry stores in Queens and Brooklyn — making away with up to $800,000 in bling in one brazen heist.
Cops said on Dec. 6 around 6:20 p.m., three robbers, wearing masks and hoodies, broke into a jewelry store along 37th Ave. and 74th St. in Jackson Heights, Queens — busting the display window with hammers and sledgehammers and grabbing the pricey jewelry estimated to be worth $800,000.
The owner of Abid Jewelers was in the store, and told the Daily News the heist happened “so fast,” noting he was the only one working at the time of the robbery. There were no customers inside, he added.
“They smashed the glass and then they took the jewelry from outside,” owner Abid Mukhtar said.
The trio fled in a Jeep, getting to 72nd St. and 35th Ave., ditched the Jeep and got away in a black sedan, cops said.
“I’ve been doing this for 25 years, nothing like this has ever happened, I was shocked,” Mukhtar said of the robbery.
Two days later, around 1:35 p.m. Dec 8., four thieves, believed to be the same crew, traveled in a blue Honda Civic to another jewelry store near 5th Ave. and Bay Ridge Ave. in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, cops said. Three of the crew jumped out of the car and, yet again, used sledgehammers and hammers, to get into a display case.
But this break-in was a bust, cops said, saying the crew fled the scene in the getaway car. There were no injuries, police said.
Anyone with information on the incidents is is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477)
