Toronto police are looking for help identifying two men they say walked away with $500,000 worth of jewelry after robbing at a York Mills neighbourhood store last month.
The incident occurred on Oct. 14 at around 11 a.m. at a busy plaza near Leslie Street and York Mills Road. Police say two men, dressed in burkas, walked into the jewelry store and threatened staff with a handgun.
According to investigators, the suspects spent about five minutes inside the store and dumped a large quantity of jewelry into handbags before fleeing in a getaway vehicle parked outside.
At a news conference on Wednesday morning, Toronto Police Staff Insp. Mike Earl said police have little to go on in terms of identifying the men and appealed to the public for help.
“It is our belief that with this amount of jewelry, that somebody may have purchased large quantities of jewelry shortly after the robbery that may point us in the right direction,” Earl said.
Earl noted that this type of disguise is not exactly typical of a jewelry store robbery.
“We’ve seen balaclavas, and ski masks and we’ve seen scarves, bandanas,” he said.
“This is the first jewelry store robbery we’ve seen where they are dressed up in burkas.”
The first suspect has been described as black, about five-foot-eleven, and was seen wearing a black burka with shiny details on both arms, black gloves, and boots. Police say he was armed with a gun.
The second suspect has been described as about six-foot-three and was seen wearing what appeared to be a black burka and black boots.
“We don’t have a lot of jewelry store robberies of this nature,” Earl said.
“Somebody getting their hands on this amount of jewelry at one time there is going to be a market out there for them to try to make money and hopefully somebody, an honest retailer, may come forward and tell us that they purchased a large volume of jewelry from some people fitting that description around this time.”
