A reward of R10,000, which will be escalated, has been offered for anyone who comes forward with information that can lead to the arrest of the suspects who were involved in an armed robbery at Pyramid Jewellers at the North Cape Mall in Kimberley.
A REWARD of R10,000, which will be escalated, has been offered for anyone who comes forward with information that can lead to the arrest of the suspects who were involved in an armed robbery at Pyramid Jewellers at the North Cape Mall in Kimberley.
Pyramid Jewellers was robbed on Tuesday by five men who, while pretending to be shoppers, robbed the store of jewellery valued at a substantial amount.
The store management said various jewellery pieces of different metals and precious stones were taken by the robbers.
“We have lost a lot of jewellery. The robbers took branded watches, gold chains with precious stones, diamond rings, pendants and silver rings including earrings. We are still in the process of taking inventory and cannot at this stage state what was taken and are still calculating the amount involved. All the jewellery pieces were of great value,” the owner said.
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Some of the valuable stolen items include a mother-of-pearl crucifix on a nine-carat gold chain and a precious stone set in a gold chain.
Several Michel Herbelin watches were also taken.
The management said anyone with information can contact the investigating officers of the case.
“We are willing to increase the amount depending on the information we get. Anyone who can assist can contact Colonel Magugu on 082 469 0578 or Warrant Officer Williams on 076 532 035,” they said.
Store assistants said the robbers carried out their brazen act while the door to the store was open.
“It was a normal day. One of the robbers walked into the store and the others were standing by the door. The one inside the store walked to the watches. However, he kept walking up and down in the store. We were all behind the counter and one of us tried to attend to the man. As she got up to go to him, he came behind the counter and pointed a gun at her, instructing her to go to the back.
“The other men also came into the store. The one man behind the counter instructed all employees to go into the back room and took all our cellphones. He was pointing a 9mm gun at us and the other four men were taking jewellery. They even instructed us to hand over our panic buttons.
“There was even a woman who walked into the store, not knowing that the place was being robbed. They also pushed her to the back room.
“The entire ordeal took about 20 minutes and the men calmly walked out with the jewellery in the bags. They gave back our phones but walked away with our panic buttons.
“It was only after one of the shop assistants ran out and asked people to call the police that people noticed what had happened. The woman who came into the store was left in a traumatised state,” they said.
Mall shoppers on Monday indicated that they saw an AK47 on the passenger seat of a white car that was parked in the parking area. According to witnesses, there was a man in the driver’s seat.
Shoppers were shocked when they heard a gunshot being fired in the parking area.
“The robbers ran to the white car. There was a shot fired into the air and another one into one of the concrete poles. The men then drove off. It is shocking that something like that happened, but luckily nobody was hurt during the incident,” they said.
