Toronto area jewellery stores are being robbed constantly
A Brampton jewellery store has been robbed for the second time in a month, marking just the latest in a rash of similar smash-and-grab thefts sweeping the Greater Toronto Area.
A viral video making the rounds on social media shows a group of masked men armed with hammers striking the White Carat Co. jewellery store at Bramalea City Centre on December 8, exactly one month to the day after the store was struck in an almost identical robbery.
Peel Regional Police allege that the robbery was carried out by three suspects while a fourth waited in a getaway vehicle. There were no reported injuries to any of the store employees.
The similar November 8 incident at the same location also reportedly involved three suspects, one of whom was arrested on the scene with what police describe as a "substantial quantity" of jewellery.
Just a few days before the most recent jewellery store robbery, a Cartier store in Yorkdale Shopping Centre was hit in a hold-up, with Toronto Police now seeking four suspects.
That's three high-profile jewellery store robberies in the Toronto area in just one month, two of them occurring just days apart, and a pair of them targeting the exact same retailer. Daring jewellery store robberies seem to be on the rise in 2023, and several have been captured on video so far this year.
Another cluster of these robberies occurred in May, including two notable heists that captured local attention.
Thieves were recorded smashing the windows of the World of Jewellery store in North York back on May 23. Like the recent Brampton incidents, the suspects in this Toronto smash-and-grab were masked and armed with hammers, with a getaway driver parked nearby.
Video shows thieves smash into Toronto jewellery store in brazen daylight robbery https://t.co/daVHrQLOcI #Toronto
— blogTO (@blogTO) May 24, 2023
That theft came just days after another jewellery store robbery caused panic at Pacific Mall in Markham, when reports of gunshots sent shoppers fleeing and triggered a police lockdown of the busy retail centre.
Chaos breaks out at Pacific Mall after terrifying daytime robbery with shots fired https://t.co/PP0LrL6NCz #PacificMall
— blogTO (@blogTO) May 19, 2023
While there is no collective data source available for crime in the entire Greater Toronto Area, data from the Toronto Police Service confirms that there has indeed been an increase in robberies and theft over crimes in the city for 2023.
Police report 2,902 robberies to date in 2023, up 6.5 per cent from the 2,726 recorded in 2022. Similarly, theft over crimes have increased to 1,621 in 2023, a shocking 19.6 per cent spike over the 1,355 recorded the year before.
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