Downtown LA’s Love Jewels, Reina de Oro is known for gold chains, gleaming grills, and diamond-encrusted gun miniatures that attracted buyers like rappers, celebrities, and others living large. However, the bling was gone when owners arrived at the South Broadway outlet on Monday morning. They found a hole in the wall, and upon closer inspection, it was the end of a tunnel. Police say that’s how thieves made off with millions of dollars in merchandise. The owners put the loss at roughly $20 million. Now the FBI is investigating.
Richard Winton, investigative crime writer for The Los Angeles Times, explains that largely on Sunday night, criminals used heavy saws and drills to cut their way through rooms in deserted businesses along a strip of Broadway, making their way to where the jewelry safes were located.
Police are looking at forensics to identify the criminals, and they haven’t announced any leads, as of noon today.
“If any of these people have been previously charged or arrested, then if they've left any sign of their biological makeup behind, hairs, if they were sweating … there's just a chance they might get some DNA,” Winton says.
He notes that similar cases have happened before. For example, people broke into banks across the San Gabriel Valley about 15 years ago, and they were caught due to DNA evidence.
Plus, “we go back to the 80s … the hole-in-the-wall gang was literally tunneling into banks. … The movies over the years … are generally based on real stories.”
In more modern times, rooftop bandits cut down into buildings during the early 2010s, and they were caught by the feds and Sheriff’s Department, he says.
“The … has bank job … is back in favor. So amongst super criminals, we had a $100 million jewelry heist from a truck in Lebec. We had a $30 million — someone cut a hole in the wall at the … facility in Sylmar, and found out all the banks kept their money there on Easter weekend, and lo and behold, it was all gone the next morning. … This is just the latest heist we've seen.”
