TAMARAC, Fla. – Police are searching for the people who they believe are responsible for the theft of some expensive gold coins.
The thieves said they would be back in just a few minutes with the cash to pay for the gold coins, but after about a half hour, the shop owners had a gut feeling something was wrong.
Surveillance video captured the moment two thieves swiped gold coins worth nearly $10,000 from Tropical Stamps and Coins in Tamarac on Wednesday.
In the video, a woman is seen distracting the shop owners before quickly slipping a bag filled with three gold coins out of sight.
Shop owner Mitchell Kopkin has been in business for over five decades. He says nothing like this has ever happened.
“I glanced over there while she did it, it was so quick,” he said. “I try to think of what I could’ve done differently and I still can’t come up with it.”
Kopkin’s wife Sheba watched the security video just thirty minutes after the crooks left.
“We were so mad at ourselves about how we didn’t catch them,” she said. “I know they were professionals. It wasn’t their first rodeo.”
The brazen thieves did this with a camera staring them right in the face.
The Kopkins say it’s extremely disappointing and this will change how they do business going forward.
“It hurts,” said Mitchell Kopkin. “I couldn’t sleep last night.”
Local 10 News has reached out to investigators to see if they have identified the people in the video, but have not heard back at the time of this story’s publication.
Anyone with information or who thinks they may recognize the people in the video are urged to call Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-TIPS.
