Shocking Thrift-Shop Theft

Argh! Dude was minding his own business last Wednesday in a Scottish charity shop (aka thrift shop), scavenging for books. While dude browsed, thieves snatched his canvas handbag, raced away with it and drove off to points unknown. The handbag contained £1 million worth of jewelry which the unfortunate fella had been transporting as part of his job. According to The Scotsman:

“It was a simple bag snatch –- a crime that took just seconds as the thief stole a nondescript canvas sports holdall casually set down by a man browsing for a secondhand book in a busy charity shop. But yesterday the seemingly petty crime in an Oxfam book shop in Perth was at the centre of a major police hunt for a suspected gang of international jewel thieves after it was revealed that the missing bag contained a staggering £1 million in diamond rings, bracelets and necklaces, owned by one of Britain’s leading jewel merchants.

“The hapless victim of the jewel heist was the 62-year-old South African sales representative of a family firm in London’s Hatton Garden – the centre of Britain’s jewellery trade.

“Yesterday he was said to be still recovering as details of the magnitude of the theft were made public.

“Detectives hunting the three-strong gang –- two men and a woman –- believe the jewellery rep was the victim of a well-planned and executed crime and not an opportunist theft.

“Officers from Tayside Police are scouring CCTV footage in a bid to identify the three.

“The bag was snatched on Tuesday afternoon as the sales representative, who has been in the diamond trade for more than 40 years, was paying one of his regular visits to Perth.

“Minutes before his bag was snatched in the Oxfam charity shop in South Street, he had called at Timothy Hardie, the leading jewellery shop in St John Street, where Colin Montgomerie bought the engagement ring for his wife Gaynor.

“Sarah Craig, a spokeswoman for Tayside Police, said: ‘The man placed his blue canvas sports bag containing the jewellery down on the floor [in the Oxfam shop]. While the man was browsing through some books, his bag was stolen. It contained over £600,000 worth of jewellery.’”