Alpharetta and Cobb County police are looking for a duo pictured stealing thousands of dollars of jewelry during a brazen smash-and-grab robbery.
Police spokesman Officer George Gordon said the two men were captured on video walking up to the jewelry case in the Costco Wholesale store at 2855 Jordan Court around 7:40 p.m. on Jan. 2.
The men smashed the glass case with a hammer and put jewelry into a bag before dashing from the store.
“Absolutely, these individuals chose what they wanted to take,” Gordon said, noting that surveillance footage showed the men scouting the store earlier the same day, around 11 a.m.
In surveillance footage, both men walk up to the jewelry case, squat next to one end, and then one of the bandits hammers out the glass while the other scoops out the jewelry.
“It took less than 10 seconds,” Gordon said. “And dozens of customers were in the store.”
Police said the value of the jewelry is “in the thousands” of dollars.
The two men have yet to be identified by police and are considered persons of interest, Gordon said.
They kept their hoodies over their heads during the robbery and when they walked past cameras in the store.
Investigators believe the men may also be linked to a similar robbery from the Costco store at Cumberland Mall in Cobb County, Gordon said.
According to Cobb County police reports, a pair of men entered the Costco at 2900 Cumberland Mall around 7 p.m. on Feb. 1 and used a hammer to smash open the glass jewelry case and take more than $171,000 worth of jewelry.
The men ran out of the store and into the nearby woodline, where authorities said they’d marked their escape by tying pieces of paper to the trees, according to police reports.
In both incidents, police said the bandits dropped the hammer used in the caper.
Gordon said the robberies are linked because “the way they robbed both places is similar and they have similar descriptions in both incidents.”
Anyone with information on these individuals is asked to call the Alpharetta police tip line at 678-297-6307 or call Detective Jakai Braithwaite at 678-297-6322.
