Their second hands didn’t even tick through half a minute before they were gone, out a smashed window.
More than HK$1 million (US$127,900) worth of valuable second-hand watches were snatched last night during a brazen smash-and-grab raid on a jewelry store in Yuen Long’s Yat San Street.
According to hk01, three men, wearing masks, attacked the store after 9pm, smashed the front window with a hammer, and stuffed more than 60 watches, including Rolex and Tissot brands, into rucksacks.
Security footage of the incident clocked the raid at under 20 seconds.
The 31-year-old owner of the shop, surnamed Yip, said an employee was in the store at the time.
He said the store — which also sells diamonds — was insured.
Citing information from police, hk01 said the trio had a dark complexion and all wore dark clothes, hats and masks, while on.cc reported that the three men were South Asian.
Officers are continuing a city-wide search for the trio, whose raid marks the fourth major smash-and-grab case since March last year, the SCMP reported.
In December, three masked men broke into a pop-up store in Central and made off with 15 designer handbags.
The pop-up was run by online luxury bazaar Guiltless, run by the daughter of Malaysia’s richest man, Robert Kuok.
In September, three thieves robbed a Tsim Sha Tsui store of HK$24 million (US$3 million) worth of jewelry in less than 10 seconds, before fleeing on single motorcycle.
In the same area about six months earlier, a hammer-wielding thief took just seven seconds to smash into a jewelry store on Nathan Road and escape with a diamond ring worth HK$5.26 million (US$672,000), the SCMP reported.
