$1-Million Gold Heist in Downtown : Crime: Well-dressed robbers escape jewelry center after tying up seven victims.

Two well-dressed armed men robbed a downtown manufacturing jewelry shop this morning and escaped with nearly $1 million in gold after taping and handcuffing seven victims.

The holdup occurred at the Rope Mine Corp. on the sixth floor of a jewelry center building at 610 S. Broadway, Detective Lt. Robert Kurth said.

It was the largest haul from the downtown jewelry district in recent years, robbery detectives reported.

Five employees and the two owners of the firm were held at gunpoint by the pair, described as possible Iranians in their 30s, said Kurth, head of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Central Station detectives.

“They were readily admitted to the store in the tight security building shortly before 8 a.m. on posing as customers,” Kurth said.

“They displayed guns and then taped and handcuffed those inside. They helped themselves to some 47 to 50 kilos (up to 110 pounds) of gold dust, ingots and other forms of the precious metal used in making gold rope chains by the firm.

“The suspects left a short time later after putting the gold in two briefcases they were carrying when they came in.”

Kurth said no other jewelers or security guards in the building were aware a robbery was in progress, even though the robbers apparently had to escape past a security guard station.

“The only way they (the robbers) could escape was by walking past the security desk at the front door of the building,” Kurth said.

It took the victims 15 to 20 minutes to remove their restraints before they were able to call police for help, according to the official report.