An armed gang of at least four masked robbers cleaned out a Connecticut jewelry store and made off with more than $4 million in bling after kidnapping the store manager and an employee.
The sophisticated heist began Thursday night when the gang burst into a Meriden apartment leased by Lenox Jewelers and seized the manager, Antoine Abedui, and an employee who lived there, authorities said yesterday.
Investigators said the gang may have followed the employees after they closed the store in Fairfield, 40 miles away.
The robbers used duct tape to bind, gag and blindfold the employees in the apartment — and then did the same to two friends who stumbled upon the home invasion.
Two of the robbers, who wore masks and gloves, took the two employees in the manager’s BMW back to the Fairfield store, police said.
They forced the employees to open the store and its safe with their access codes.
Police said the swift-working thieves managed to empty the entire store safe in five minutes. The store specializes in high-end watches and jewelry.
The total haul from the robbery was estimated at $4 million to $5 million.
The thieves left the two victims tied up in the back of the store and fled in the BMW.
From the time the employees were seized to when the thieves fled, the robbery took about two hours.
The employees were eventually able to free themselves and call police. Abedui said they had no choice but to cooperate with their captors.
“We were hostages. You don’t know what could go wrong,” he told WTNH-TV. “And you’re just praying for this to end.”
The robbers kept in contact with one another so that they could coordinate the getaway.
One minute after the thieves left the Fairfield store, the two victims held at the Meriden apartment were released and the gunmen who held them fled, according to police.
None of the victims was harmed, police said.