Two Jewel Robbery Suspects Arrested : Possible Link Seen to Beverly Wilshire, Washington Holdups

Two men, believed to be part of a group of robbers who have staged bold daytime holdups of jewelry stores throughout the country for as long as two years, have been arrested in Los Angeles in the $500,000 robbery of a posh Washington department store, authorities said Monday.

Beverly Hills police also are looking at the two Los Angeles men as possible suspects in the Aug. 22 robbery of an exclusive jewelry store in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, in which four bandits armed with Uzi-style submachine guns escaped with an estimated $250,000 worth of gold and diamond jewelry.

Gregory Andre Barnes, 26, and Ralph Bryant, 22, were arrested without a struggle Friday night a few blocks from Exposition Park by Los Angeles police, who were carrying an FBI arrest warrant, an FBI spokesman said here.

Both men were ordered jailed without bond on armed robbery charges after an appearance before a federal magistrate. Barnes was held at Terminal Island federal prison. Bryant was taken to Los Angeles County Jail because he is a suspect in a local armed robbery, authorities said.

A spokesman at the FBI’s Washington office said both men are believed to be part of a “very organized” group that has robbed numerous jewelry stores in Denver and Florida in addition to the September, 1984, robbery at the jewelry department of the Neiman-Marcus store in the nation’s capital.

Investigators feel the group may have also committed a number of robberies on the West Coast and in Maryland and Virginia.

The Washington FBI spokesman said his agency’s investigation indicated that the robbers’ trips were financed by other individuals.

Earlier this year, three downtown Los Angeles jewelers were convicted of purchasing some of the expensive watches and rings taken in the Neiman-Marcus heist. They were arrested after Los Angeles police detectives found the stolen merchandise at two stores in the Los Angeles jewelry district while investigating unrelated robberies.

Saied Kalimi Aframian and Khosrow Rahimian, who own one of the stores in a building on South Hill Street, were convicted of three and four counts, respectively, of receiving stolen property. Mahmoudd Shapouri, who operates a shop in the same building, pleaded guilty to six counts. They are awaiting sentencing.

Prosecutors and police claimed that Aframian and Rahimian ran their business as a front for a fencing operation. The authorities said they believe that the two men purchased the entire contents of the Neiman-Marcus heist for between $75,000 and $90,000 and then sold it to other jewelers.

Rahimian, according to court records, was convicted in 1984 of participating in a fraud ring in which he and three dozen other downtown jewelry merchants knowingly purchased stolen credit cards from thieves and used the cards to run off hundreds of thousands of dollars in phony purchase slips, which they then submitted to banks for reimbursement.

The Neiman-Marcus robbery was one of the largest heists in the District of Columbia in recent years. Two well-dressed men in their 20s, one armed with a handgun, entered the exclusive store at about 1:30 p.m. Picking from display cases, they ordered clerks to place 76 expensive watches and diamond rings in bags.

“They knew what they were after,” the FBI spokesman said.

In the Beverly Hills robbery, four well-dressed men entered the exclusive Schwartz Jewellers in the Beverly Wilshire shortly before 11 a.m., tipping a doorman $5 to watch their Cadillac, which was stolen, and remarking, “We’ll only be here a couple of minutes.”

Just outside the jewelry store, one of the robbers produced a weapon resembling an Uzi submachine gun from beneath his coat, fired a shot and yelled for everyone inside to get down on the floor. The robbers entered and broke display cases and threw diamond rings, necklaces, earrings and other items into a gym bag before fleeing in the Cadillac.

A Beverly Hills police spokesman said Monday that his agency is “looking into the connection” between the Beverly Hills and Washington robberies.

John A. Jackels, manager of the Beverly Hills jewelry store, said police indicated that he will be asked to look at the two suspects during a lineup later this week.

Another daring daytime jewelry heist--attributed to a group of Los Angeles street gang members--occurred at a shopping mall in Bellevue, Wash., two weeks ago. However, both the FBI and Bellevue detectives said they do not believe there was a connection with the Neiman-Marcus robbery.

In the Bellevue incident, four youths, ranging in age from 12 to 18, apparently flew to Washington state and took as much as $300,000 in jewelry from a store at gunpoint. One suspect was arrested at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, but the other robbers escaped, police said.