(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) Acquiring and holding hard assets is one thing. Keeping them safe is quite another. A Southern California business owner — and his customers — just learned this the hard way.
In recent days, thieves cleaned out a Simi Valley jewelry store, making off with millions of dollars in uninsured precious metals, jewelry, and cash in a brazen burglary.
5 Star Jewelry and Watch Repair is in a strip mall. The thieves broke into an adjacent candy/coffee shop through the roof, spray-painted security cameras in the store, and then spent several hours cutting through the concrete wall to access the jewelry store.
Directly on the other side of the wall was the backside of a 5,000-pound safe — apparently unprotected by vibration or other sensors. The thieves cut through the steel wall in the back of the safe and cleaned it out.
Jonathon Youssef owns the store with his 71-year-old father, Jacoub. He compared the break-in to a movie like Oceans Eleven or The Italian Job, and told the LA Times that he thinks it was an experienced crew.
“They were no slouches, and this wasn’t their first rodeo. They knew where the cameras were, how to evade detection and what equipment to use to get into the safe.”
Youssef said the burglars made off with between $2 and $2.5 million in gold and silver bullion, jewelry, watches, and cash.
The store was insured, but remarkably, the policy did not cover the contents of the safe! Youssef claimed to the Times they couldn’t afford the insurance premiums.
The store offers repair services, and some of the jewelry in the safe belonged to customers.
“Those are the irreplaceable items that are difficult to accept,” Youssef said. “I couldn’t care less about our inventory.”
Fighting back tears, Youssef told the Times he and his father are both devastated by the loss.
“It was a lifetime’s worth of work — of struggle — gone, just gone. Everything we owned and, worse, family heirlooms of our customers are gone. It’s unthinkable.”
Just a few days later, there was a similar break-in in Glendale. Thieves entered a jewelry store through the roof and cleaned out the store. The owner told ABC News 7 that he thought he had a “pretty sophisticated security system.”
“I’m not sure how they knew where it is. If they have motions or like sensors where they know where this stuff is. I have no idea.”
Money Metals Depository CEO Stefan Gleason said local businesses such as these frequently underestimate the effectiveness of their security precautions.
“They don’t have the controls, the security, or the insurance.”
Money Metals Depository operates a massive, state-of-the-art vaulting facility in Eagle, Idaho, that’s known for its high security, auditing, internal controls, and record of zero losses ever.
Gleason noted that although these Southern California burglars were clearly professionals, they would not have been successful if the business owners had taken better precautions.
For example, Gleason pointed out that cutting through walls and breaching a safe from behind isn’t an uncommon tactic by thieves seeking to avoid alarm systems. If they can avoid triggering alarms, burglars can gain hours to work undetected.
“An experienced, high-value security consultant would have immediately identified this vulnerability and insisted that the deficiency be addressed. At minimum, a safe should not be installed against an exterior wall — vibration sensors, motion detectors, and/or laser curtains should protect all sides of it.”
Furthermore, Gleason said safes are not sufficient to hold extremely high values, as they only deter professionals with proper tools for a few minutes. Either way, installing proper, redundant electronic warning systems can improve any situation considerably. And insurance is a necessary expense.
This tragic story underscores the importance of vetting businesses (and their insurance coverages) before entrusting them with your valuables. And since home security can more easily be defeated by professional thieves, it’s prudent for owners of large values of precious metals to use a professional depository.
Mike Maharrey is a journalist and market analyst for Money Metals with over a decade of experience in precious metals. He holds a BS in accounting from the University of Kentucky and a BA in journalism from the University of South Florida.
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