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A Fifth Avenue diamond dealer was robbed of $4-10 million worth of diamonds by men posing as FedEx delivery men. And they weren't even wearing uniforms - they were just wearing FedEx t-shirts! Around noon, the two men were able to enter 580 Fifth Avenue in plain clothes, but then on the sixth floor, they changed into their "FedEx gear" and told Doppelt & Greenwald Diamonds the operation needed to open the door for them because the package was too large. And plus, they needed a signature. Then the robbers handcuffed the employees and customers and swiped the gems. We hear the dealers were usually try to keep big thefts quiet, because it's bad publicity when your business is robbed, but we suppose they got over that, as a police SWAT team was called in. And the cops did check FedEx trucks in the area.
And NYC Metblogger John-Boy was locked in 580 Fifth after the robbery - here's his account.
Photograph from reader Ilya (click the photo to see a bigger image)
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That's not the first time this has happened. Last year, two guys pulled the same Fed-Ex uniform scam in the diamond district and made off with a similarly huge grab.
I'd like to see them dress up like Hasids, a la the movie Snatch. Now that would be a heist.
I go in and out of this building daily. There's no way those two guys entered the building in street clothes and then changed into FedEx uniforms. If you're in street clothes and try to get in through the front or the side entrance, security will not let you in.
There's only two ways those guys entered that building: either the security didn't check them at the front while they had the FedEx uniforms on or they snuck in at the side entrace when the security guard there was distracted.
In the lobby, there's a metal detector there where visitors have to walk through and if you're carrying a bag whether you're a tenant there or just a vistor, you have to run it through the x-ray machine. I've seen them let FedEx, UPS, and DHL guys walk through the front without scanning them at all, however, there's two types of bags that FedEx and UPS carries: a clear pastics bag for light boxes or if they're doing a major pick-up/delivery, they have a handtruck and a large white woven bag filled with boxes. If you see two guys working for a major delivery company with a duffel bag, shouldn't that ring a bell? Granted that DHL uses shoulder carrying bags, but the bags are so small that the delivery guy has the bag over-flowed with packages.
At the side entrance at 1 West, people can go in, but only tenants with keycards. They have to walk through a turnstile and there's a guard that opens a gate to let people out of the building and never in. There's two double doors that you have to go through before tenants flash their keyguard, but in between those two double doors there's an exit leading from the second floor; you can only open while you're leaving from 2nd floor. If they caught the guard not looking, they could've easily snuck in through the exit just when someone was coming out or when the guard wasn't looking, they just passed him if he was chatting with someone.
As for the FedEx "t-shirts", well, they're polo t-shirts. Nothing more. There's a package delivery company in there called "Malca-Amit" in that building. The delivery guys wear is just a t-shirt with the logo and jeans. Some, however, carry guns because these guys are/were cops. The security guards there shouldn't be even called security guards. They just work in the lobby and that's it. Not only do they not have a gun, they have no handcuffs, and no protection at all. They're even trained to "look for clues". Speaking of Malca-Amit, the front today, just let a guy through without even checking him.
I like it how the media gets things wrong and just airs it no matter what. ABC news called the building 280 while showing the side entrance and the reporters said that the secretary let them into the building.