Jewel Heist Is Third In 4 Years -- Bellevue Robberies All Well- Planned

BELLEVUE

The theft of about $600,000 worth of jewelry in broad daylight Sunday marks the third time in four years that jewel couriers have been the victims of armed robberies in Bellevue.

This time it was on a Northeast Fourth Street ramp from Interstate 405; in October 1996 it was in the parking lot at Bellevue Square; and in April 1995 it was in a jewelry-store parking lot on Lake Bellevue Drive.

All the robberies were well-planned and well-orchestrated by teams of three to 10 robbers. And police think some of the thieves may have had inside information on jewelry deliveries.

"They choose the location where they want the robbery to occur and use a swarm technique. They get in and out pretty quick," said Bellevue police Lt. Jim Gasperetti, head of the crime-against-persons unit.

Generally, the robbers are from out of state and in some cases from other countries.

They fly in for the heist and fly out the next day.

"We don't know for sure if that's the case in Sunday's robbery," said Gasperetti, "but in the past it was."

On Sunday at about 1 p.m., two couriers in a rented car had driven nonstop from Portland and were on their way to Weisfield Jewelers at Bellevue Square.

They pulled on to the Fourth Street ramp and were immediately boxed in by a white Isuzu Rodeo sport-utility vehicle and a gray Chevrolet Astro van.

Before the couriers, a 47-year-old Louisiana man and a 31-year-old California man, could react, they were surrounded by at least four men, some armed.

One robber broke the driver's-side window, reached inside, released the trunk latch and then took two bags from the trunk containing loose diamonds and other colored gems and stones in settings.

The robbers then jumped back into their vehicles and headed north on I-405. Both vehicles bore Oregon license plates.

"That's part of the plan - do the job near a freeway and make a fast getaway," Gasperetti said.

Early yesterday, the Rodeo was found abandoned in a coffee-shop parking lot in Clyde Hill, near a ramp to state Highway 520.

Bellevue police Detective Jerry Johnson, who is assigned to the case, said the two vehicles were rented in Portland last Thursday and speculation is that the robbers followed the couriers from Portland to Bellevue.

The vehicles were rented separately by a woman with a Panamanian passport and a man with a passport from El Salvador, Johnson said.

The Rodeo was examined yesterday morning and evidence found in it is being processed for fingerprints.

"I imagine the Astro van will turn up abandoned," Johnson said.

"I figure they are out of the area now."

A little more than three years ago, at least five men ambushed a Friedlander's Jewelers district manager and security guard who were bringing a case of loose diamonds from Southcenter Mall to Bellevue Square.

As they parked at the east end of the mall shortly after 10 p.m. on Oct. 18, 1996, they were jumped by as many as 10 gunmen.

One grabbed the security guard's gun and forced the guard and the manager to the ground.

The robbers grabbed bags containing $500,000 worth of diamonds and fled after slashing the tires on cars belonging to three witnesses to the robbery.

In March 1998, two men were convicted of the robbery in King County Superior Court and sentenced to nine years in prison.

The men had been arrested after witnesses identified them as two of four men who stole $120,000 worth of jewelry at a mall in Federal Way in April 1997.

At the time, an Immigration and Naturalization Service investigation indicated all four were Colombian nationals who carried high-quality forged European passports and falsely claimed to be from countries other than Colombia.

On April 8, 1995, three armed men robbed a wholesale jewelry salesman and fled in his car with several cases of gold, diamonds and other gems at about 10 a.m.

The salesman, who had just left a wholesale jewelry store on Lake Bellevue Drive, was approached by the robbers in the parking lot as he was pulling a luggage cart stacked with several briefcases full of mounted and loose gems.

Louis T. Corsaletti's phone message number is 206-515-5626. His e-mail address is: lcorsaletti@seattletimes.com