Aspen, Colorado- November 12, 2024- Multiple suspects allegedly tunneled through the wall of the Forré Fine Art gallery to the Avi & Co. jewelry store between late Sunday night and early Monday morning. The Aspen Police Department arrested four men Tuesday for allegedly burglarizing Avi & Co. jewelry between late Sunday night and early Monday morning.
The men, who allegedly tunneled through two walls of adjacent businesses to get into the jewelry store, were arrested in Vail by Aspen Police, according to an Aspen Police Department news release. They were taken to the Pitkin County Jail.
Two of the men arrested, a 34 year old from Peru and a 41 year old from Buenos Aires, received felony charges of second-degree burglary. The other two men arrested, a 35 year old and a 43 year old, both from Chile, received felony charges of conspiracy to commit burglary.
“Kudos to our guys. They did some brilliant, brillant police work, honestly,” Aspen Assistant Police Chief Bill Linn said. “Some of the officers were so dang creative in recognizing what was going on.”
Nothing of value was taken from the jewelry store, or the two adjacent businesses through which the burglars entered, according to business employees. The suspects did not successfully open the vault.
The suspects didn’t have to break a door or window to enter the building complex in Hunter Plaza, where a number of businesses are connected wall to wall including the jewelry store, according to Wayan Owner Raphael Derly.
They first entered through the front door of Wayan, an Indonesian restaurant set for a grand opening in December, Derly said. Currently under construction, the restaurant takes the place of the former Local Coffee.
Derly said he left Sunday evening, locking both doors to the front of the business. One door is opened by a code, the other by a key. Neither doors were damaged when the burglars broke into the space.
Once in, the suspects tunneled through the wall of the restaurant and the wall of Forré Fine Art gallery into the back office of the jewelry store, using an arsenal of tools, including saws, settling torches, crowbars, gas tanks, and a ladder, among other items to aid them in their alleged burglary.
The suspects tunneled from where they first entered the building complex in Wayan, an Indonesian restaurant scheduled to open in December, to Forré Fine Art, a contemporary art gallery, so they could get to the wall separating the gallery and the jewelry shop. Larry White/Courtesy Photo
An Avi & Co. employee who elected to remain anonymous said it seemed as though they were after the contents of the jewelry store vault.
“I just definitely think it was about jewelry and watches,” the employee said. “(It’s) just weird, to not take anything else, if they were just trying to get anything valuable.”
Some watches sold in the jewelry store are valued at $400,000, according to the employee.
They didn’t take any computers, art or alcohol from the other two businesses, all of which were accessible to the suspects, the employee said.
Some of the art in the Forré is valued at over $1 million, Forré Manager Larry White said.
On Sunday at 4 p.m., the afternoon before the burglary, White said he had an uneasy feeling about three men who had entered the gallery.
When he left the gallery later that afternoon he bumped into an Aspen police officer on the street, who he told about his suspicions. White said the police officer passed the information along to the department.
Based on camera footage from the store, the suspects entered the businesses around 9:30 p.m., and came and went three separate times throughout the night, the jewelry store employee said. They cut the alarm when they first entered, the employee added.
Officers arrived on scene late Sunday evening after they were notified about a triggered alarm in the jewelry shop, but left the business after they discovered nothing, according to the press release.
“We do have security, and the door is locked, so it’s not like (the police) could just come in the store,” the employee said. The vault is not visible from the outside of the jewelry shop.
The employee said the suspects returned a couple hours later to scope out the shop, before leaving once more. She said they returned a final time around 1:30 a.m. “And then that’s when they came back, and they covered the cameras, like spray painted the cameras,” the employee said.
Additionally, the suspects had placed large white foam panels in front of the gallery windows, to block most of the view from outside, said White. The officers were summoned once more by a jewelry store alarm around 1:30 a.m., according to the press release. Linn said the officers noticed a discrepancy in the site upon their return because a ladder inside the gallery had been moved. “Honestly, to respond to a burglar alarm is not an uncommon thing,” Linn said. “But to actually recognize that there was more going on here than just the average burglar alarm? They were just very sharp, on top of it.”
The suspects had fled by the time the officers entered the jewelry shop, according to the release. Officers later identified the suspects and their vehicles using modern policing technology and video surveillance recordings, according to the release. They sent out a statewide notification about the suspects, who were approached by Vail police, and arrested in Vail by Aspen police, before being brought to the Pitkin County Jail, according to the release.
While burglaries are uncommon in Aspen, Linn said high-end businesses could be at greater risk. “With high value businesses, I suppose (it) creates the sense that people might be able to make a bigger score or something,” he said.
Linn said it’s important for businesses with high value products to have a good video security system and an alarm system that notifies the police when triggered. A trial date for the men has not yet been scheduled. “The City of Aspen emphasizes the fundamental principle that every person accused of a crime is presumed to be innocent unless and until his or her guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law,” Linn said in the release.
Article provided by Skyler Stark-Ragsdale of the Aspen times, which can be viewed by clicking here.