Three hooded men robbed the «Boutique dos Relógios» shop yesterday evening, in AlgarveShopping, Guia (Albufeira). The armed robbery did not cause any casualties.
The robbery took place around 19:30 pm on Thursday, when three hooded men entered the store, located on the ground floor and next to one of the entrances to the shopping centre. One of them remained at the entrance, guarding, while the remaining two went inside.
Then one of them pulled out what the store employees said was a pistol and forced them to lie down on the floor and remain quiet.
However, the second assailant, using a sledgehammer, smashed the glass tables where there were valuable watches and stuffed everything into a bag.
The three hooded men immediately fled, getting into a car that was parked near the store, driven by a fourth member of the gang. In total, the armed robbery took less than five minutes.
The robbers were caught by surveillance cameras at the store and at AlgarveShopping, but the fact that they have their faces covered makes it difficult to identify them.
From the security of AlgarveShopping, no one will have noticed what was going on.
Following a request for clarification made by the Sul Informação, the shopping center's administration confirmed the situation and added, in a statement, that "the incident took place inside the store, in a discreet manner, without resorting to violence and without causing any disturbance outside the store".
“The shopkeeper alerted the Security Center shortly after the occurrence. The Center immediately called the authorities, who in turn promptly went to the Center to take care of her and start the investigation. The Center has always been operating as normal”, added the AlgarveShopping administration.
This is not the first time that Boutique dos Relógios, in AlgarveShopping, has been robbed. In October 2012, when the store was almost closing, a group also with their heads covered with hoods and armed with a hammer and sticks, kidnapped the maids while they were breaking the various displays of valuable watches. Also this time, the robbery was recorded by video surveillance of the commercial space.
This second case is also remembered by the administration of the Shopping Center, who stressed, even so, that "there is no record of assaults in this Center using physical violence."
(Updated at 15:25 pm with clarifications from the administration of AlgarveShopping)
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