Wednesday, April 22, 1998 | 10:05 a.m.
"Professional" burglars got away with about $200,000 in jewelry and leather coats from the Burlington Coat Factory over the weekend, Metro Police said.
Workers arrived at the retail outlet Sunday morning to find that the jewelry department inside the store at 5959 W. Sahara Ave. had been burglarized the night before, Burglary Detail Sgt. Tim Shalhoob said.
He described the heist as "a very professional job."
"The target was safes," Shalhoob said. "Jewelry inside the safes. It was very professional."
Shalhoob described the crime as "a roof-entry job."
Three burglary detectives have been assigned to the case, he said.
Inside the safes was jewelry valued at an estimated $200,000, he said.
But Barry Brown, assistant director of loss prevention for the company, which is based in New Jersey, said until a complete inventory of the jewelry is done, the exact dollar loss won't be known.
"The numbers aren't official yet," he said. "In our jewelry department, it's a complicated system to see what's missing. We have a lot of pieces of jewelry we have to inventory to determine exactly what's missing."
Also missing were "some leathers and other goods," Brown said.
The store, just east of Jones Boulevard, opened in 1991, he said. It is one of 300 Burlington off-priced department stores across the country.
"Years ago we were just coats," Brown said. "But now we're a lot of everything."
Because of the burglary, the store was closed for business Sunday, but reopened on Monday, he said.
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