3 Steal Jewelry Worth $100,000

In one of the biggest jewelry robberies in Ventura County history, more than $100,000 in jewels was stolen at gunpoint from a Thousand Oaks department store Friday night, authorities disclosed Saturday.

The jewelry was taken from the Best Products store in the Janss Mall by three robbers, one of whom confronted a jewelry department clerk with a black, semiautomatic handgun, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said.

The gunman ordered the clerk to unlock the eight jewelry cases. While his two accomplices were emptying the cases, the gunman detained eight clerks and customers who were in the area, a sheriff’s official added.

“It’s one of the largest jewel robberies we’ve had,” Sheriff’s Lt. Tony Ditzhazy said. “It wasn’t like holding up a 7-Eleven or gas station. They came in full well knowing what they were going to do.”

“It’s obviously a major case. . . . I don’t recall a larger one, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been one. I just don’t recall a single larger one in Thousand Oaks,” Undersheriff Larry Carpenter said.

The robbers took “everything in the store,” Ditzhazy said. He said one witness described a possible getaway vehicle as being a gold or gray Hyundai-type car with California license plates.

The gunman was described as 28 to 30 years old, 6 feet 3 inches tall and black, with short hair. The two other men were described as black, shorter than the gunman and under 20 years old, Ditzhazy said.