[imagesource: Jason Fochtman/AP]

A jewellery heist in California has been compared to some fabled movie efforts, with thieves bold enough to steal between 25 and 30 bags of rare and expensive jewellery making its way to a jewellery convention near Los Angeles.

The “Hollywood-style heist”, as Robb Report describes it, took place on July 11 as the sparkling merchandise was being transported by a Brink’s high-security truck.

The truck was moving the jewels from the International Gem and Jewelry Show in San Mateo to another trade show some 600 kilometres away at the Pasadena Convention Center.

Thieves swiped an unknown number of individual pieces worth around $150 million, according to some, although the value estimates vary wildly.

Sky News reported that 18 victims reported more than $100 million in losses, according to the director of the San Mateo show, Brandy Swanson. Vendors claimed the figure was as high as $150 million, though.

Meanwhile, a Brink’s spokesperson said the items were valued at less than $10 million.

The discrepancy with the value estimates is largely down to the insurance of the jewellery:

Jewelry owners tend to underestimate their pricey inventory when it comes to insurance because the cost of insuring it would be too high, Swanson said.

“That’s where the discrepancy comes in. These are mom-and-pop operators,” she said. “They’re devastated. Some of these people have lost their entire livelihoods.”

The New York Post, describing the scene as a “heist straight out of Ocean’s 11“, reported how the merchandise was loaded onto a Brink’s truck Sunday night after the first convention and was nearly on its way to the next destination when it was robbed.

That apparently happened in the mountain community of Frazier Park, an FBI spokeswoman said, although the details and a possible video of the heist have not been disclosed.

One of the distraught vendors who lost a priceless amount of inventory in the theft said to the local news that it was “how I live, that’s how I feed my kids”:

“You’re looking at 19-karat yellow gold with over 100 carats of multicolored sapphire,” the jeweler said of some of his items.

“Sunday, you had merchandise. Today, you don’t have anything.”

Unfortunately, vendors who travel between jewellery shows typically under-insure their merchandise because they cannot afford to insure it fully.

What a shame.

[sources:robbreport&skynews&newyorkpost]