A Los Angeles jewelry store was burglarized of a whopping $20 million worth of jewelry on Sunday, April 13. The burglars reportedly dug a tunnel into Love Jewels, stripping the family owners of their decades-long earned property.
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According to Fox 11, the burglary took place at around 10 p.m. in Love Jewels, located on South Broadway. The jewelry store owners claimed that the suspects entered the store through a vacant building next door. They managed to accomplish this by cutting through a 3-foot wall and then digging a tunnel into the store.
The store owner's son talked with NBC4 and said that "they probably went in there every night, slowly dug it until there was enough room for them to get in." According to Officer David Cuellar, who talked to the Associated Press, the suspects "tunneled through multiple levels of concrete." The suspects then used the same hole to flee the scene.
Furthermore, the store owner's son said that the burglars managed to disable the store's cameras and alarm. "They were able to get into both the safes," he added. "They probably had five, six hours in here."
Devastated
Love Jewels employees found the scene on Monday, mortified over the burglarized property. Initially, it was reported that $10 million worth of jewelry was stolen by the burglars. However, the store owner told the AP that he calculated that the loss was approximately $20 million, adding that they don't have insurance.
Rita, one of the store's owners, was devastated over the burglary.
"In the gold business, you reinvest everything so all our money was what was in the safe," she told NBC4. "We're penniless, literally penniless."
The son was also devastated by the insurmountable material loss, denouncing the burglary.
"It took over 20 years for my father to accumulate all that and overnight it was all taken," he told Fox 11. "Mostly just gold, chains, we specialize in gold, so chains and bracelets. And especially with gold today, it's at an all-time high. It's a bad hit. I was telling them let's get out of the business."
The Los Angeles Police Department is currently investigating the incident. No exact number of suspects was provided by the authorities.
