Blue-jean bandits smash van into Nordstrom to steal clothes

By Kristi E. Swartz

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Thieves used a Dodge Caravan as a battering ram to smash through the doors of Perimeter Mall’s Nordstrom store Monday, making off with thousands of dollars in designer jeans.

Employees were in the store, but no one was hurt when the jeans bandits smashed through the southside doors of the store around 6 a.m., Dunwoody Sgt. Mike Carlson said.

They took a stack of True Religion designer jeans from a display near the front. Police aren’t saying how many pairs of jeans – valued at $250 apiece – were taken from the display.

Carlson said the van was stolen.

Beyond that, police don’t have a description of the robbers, and there is no video surveillance tape. They also don’t have any witnesses, Carlson said.

Carlson said the aggressive smash-and-grab that happened around 6 a.m. Monday is the first of its kind at the mall. But it’s not the first time robbers have gone after the high-priced jeans.

Thieves hit the mall’s Bloomingdales in late October, grabbing $17,000 worth of True Religion jeans.

The crime was similar to those of the so-called Blue Jean Bandits, a gang that committed a slew of similar robberies last year, mostly in Atlanta.

Such crimes, which started in early 2007, went from one or two people snatching the jeans as part of an organized daytime theft, to after-hours smash-and-grabs and eventually armed robberies.

Thieves have hit boutique stores in Buckhead, Virginia-Highland, Little Five Points, Castleberry Hill, Decatur and Dawsonville, among others, taking brand names such as Rock & Republic, True Religion, Laguna Beach and Robin Hood.