Durban – Thieves smashed display windows at Mayuri Jewellers in Chatsworth Centre and made off with designer watches on Saturday.
Four display windows at Mayuri Jewellers at Chatsworth Centre were smashed on Saturday night and thousands of rand worth of designer watches stolen.
Director Lee Soni on Sunday said they had footage of four men approaching their shop with crowbars. They had held up the only overnight security guard at the mall.
“To be honest we were expecting to have a problem. We believe this is a syndicate and they planned this,” said Soni.
Just three months ago, their store at Liberty Midlands Mall in Pietermaritzburg was robbed. This was just after opening time and the thieves took jewellery from the display windows before escaping.
Soni said they had chosen to open their stores in malls partly as a security measure. But with robberies and thefts at jewellery stores inside malls having picked up since last year, it seemed they were just as vulnerable.
undefinedLast June five armed men robbed Beverley Jewellers at the Pavilion Shopping Centre. Two weeks later, three armed men held up staff and shot at police after robbing the Narandas Jewellery store at Gateway Mall. Before these incidents, Hardwick and Mazzoni Jewellers at Westville Mall had also been robbed.
There was hope that the robberies would stop when the Hawks arrested four men believed to be on their way to hit a store at Musgrave Centre.
But in January a jewellery store on Stamford Hill Road was broken into and staff at NWJ in Musgrave Centre were robbed.
Five armed robbers hit a jewellery store in an Empangeni mall, while the windows of Osiniq Jewels in the Hilton Hotel were smashed and jewellery stolen.
Just last month, six armed men opened fire at a jewellery shop at Reservoir Hills. The owner returned fire and shot dead one of the men while the others fled.
It's widely believed a syndicate is at work, nicknamed the “hammer gang”.