CORAL GABLES, Fla. – Estelle Maury received a frantic phone call from her husband on Monday, just seconds after he was robbed at gunpoint at the couple's jewelry store in Coral Gables.
"(He said), 'I (have) just been robbed with a gun, you know. You have to come. Come back and call the police. I cannot call them,'" Estelle Maury said of the incident.
The crook who posed as a customer first came to Riviera Jewelers last week, eyeing a wedding ring for his supposed fiancée. When the man returned Monday, co-owner Kristoff Maury felt comfortable letting him inside the store.
Estelle Maury said the man wore a business suit as he stole jewels from the well-known shop.
The man forced Kristoff Maury into the store's safe and then helped himself to a piece of jewelry valued at $500,000 before targeting the display cases, grabbing anything and everything in sight.
The thief also tied up Kristoff Maury's hands with tape and put him in a closet.
"We are cooperating with the police,"Kristoff Maury said.
The robbery served as a reminder to the husband and wife team, who hail from France, of the risk that their job brings.
"Here, we feel more safe than in Paris, so it was a little bit of (a) shock for us," Estelle Maury said.