An armed group of masked thieves stormed a Texas jewelry store in a terrifying “mob-style” heist captured on camera.
Shocking cell phone footage shows the robbers wearing masks and gloves bolting from the store in the Round Rock Premium Outlets outdoor shopping mall near Austin after the brazen Tuesday raid, FOX 7 reported.
Police responded to the robbery in progress at Marc Robinson Jewelers at around 12:47 p.m.
The suspects entered the store and used pepper spray on an employee and a customer, smashed glass display cases with hammers, and fled with a “large amount of stolen jewelry,” staff told the police.
They then escaped with the loot in a blue Hyundai Sonata, later found abandoned at a nearby apartment complex.
The car had been stolen days earlier from the town of Humble, in the Houston area, according to the police.
Tuesday’s raid is the latest in a series of highly organized raids on jewelry stores in the US, which experts say is driven by the soaring price of gold.
“The modus operandi that the FBI and the Jewelers Security Alliance talk about, first, is the mob-style execution of these crimes,” International Crime Free Association Executive Director Timothy Zehring told FOX 7.
“The price of gold has skyrocketed lately and so these crimes are very lucrative,” he added.
No arrests have been made.
The approximate value of the stolen jewelry has not been released.
Police have taken the recovered vehicle in for processing.
Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Dwayne Riley of the Round Rock Police Department at (512) 218-6619.
