Last month, a brazen jewelry theft was caught on camera in Orange County, with store owners saying more than $100,000 worth of products were taken.
It happened on September 17 at OC Diamond Estate Jewelry, located in the 100 block of S. Glassell Street in Orange, in the middle of their workday around 3:30 p.m., according to Samy Soliman, owner of the store.
“They don’t care,” Soliman said. “They show no mercy.”
Video from the store that day shows two thieves with Soliman working behind the counter.
“So they ask me about jewelry,” he recalls. “I don’t have anything on display because of the accidents that happened before.”
Soliman says this isn’t the first time he’s been broken into, so he usually takes various merchandise from the back when a customer requests it. But before he could show off all the jewelry, this time he was distracted by another phone call.
“She pulled one of the boxes and put it on the chair,” he said. “The man is talking to me to block my view so I don’t see him.”
Eventually, the man and woman switch places, with the latter distracting Soliman while he is already on the phone.
“While she was talking to me and blocking my view, he grabbed the box from the chair and put it in his underwear,” Soliman said.
The man covered the portion of the box – which was full of 84 rings – while sticking his T-shirt out of his pants, moments before the two just strolled out of the store as if nothing had changed from the moment they entered.
Soliman said he didn’t notice anything was missing until he closed the store that evening and stayed until around midnight, searching every corner of the store to see if anything might have been misplaced.
He says he’s never seen anything like this in his 60 years in business.
“I feel like this is an infringement on property that people work hard to maintain,” he said.
Soliman reported the incident to Orange police, and now he’s releasing his store’s surveillance footage in hopes someone recognizes their faces — both of which are clearly seen on camera multiple times.
“They’ll get caught,” he said. ‘Somehow. If not this time, then next time.”
