On Sunday, a jewelry store in Encino became the latest victim of burglars using a blowtorch to break into safes.
Surveillance footage from Afghan Lapis Jewelry, located on the 17600 block of Ventura Boulevard, shows four suspects crawling on the floor after breaking into the store during the early morning hours.
KTLA reporter Angeli Kakade visited the store on Wednesday morning. She said the smell of smoke was still strong inside the ransacked shop. Items were overturned, and a blowtorch had been used to open two safes.
Authorities believe the burglars spent about an hour and a half inside the store. They disabled the alarm system before stealing merchandise worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Amin Nassiri, the brother of the store owner, expressed his pain. “Imagine how you would feel if you built your life, reached retirement age, and then everything you saved was gone overnight,” he said.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help the family repair and reopen their store.
This burglary closely resembles a break-in at a Glendale jewelry store last month. In that case, the suspects entered by dropping through the roof and used a blowtorch to open a safe.
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