MIAMI BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - Crooks stormed into an upscale Miami Beach hotel’s gift shop and and used trash bins to steal nearly $2 million in designer purses, and the brazen heist was all caught on camera.
Surveillance video obtained exclusively by 7News captured the group that broke into The Setai Miami Beach, located at 2001 Collins Ave., March 19.
Two of the crooks are seen speedily stuffing the hoity-toity Hermès Birkin handbags into large garbage bins.
The theft took place inside the Maison Wrist Aficionado, the ground-floor boutique at The Setai, a shop that showcases some of highest-end name brands in the world, according to its website.
But these burglars didn’t bother with online shopping. Their retail therapy was all about the rip-off.
Their mission, according to a police report, was “to steal over 60 Hermès Birkin designer handbags with a total value of over $1,800,000.00.”
Celebrities have flaunted Birkins online, in magazines and elsewhere. The ones on the store’s website are the price of cars.
The crooks appeared to take 43 seconds to collect their luxurious loot.
The police report states that when Miami Beach Police officers showed up at Maison Wrist, “They observed the door lock punched out and the business had been ransacked.”
A security guard played officers the surveillance video, and they noted “the garbage bins [were] filled to the top with purses.”
Detectives were able to track one of the vehicles the crooks used and were later able to arrest a man who they said, was involved.
Officers took 45-year-old Eduardo Garcia and taken to jail in Miami-Dade County, but his alleged partners — and those pricey purses — were nowhere to be found.
Police said Garcia confessed to being a lookout for the thieves inside and admitting to being part of a similar crime hours earlier in the Tampa area. He told detectives the earlier crime was a botched burglary because they dropped a vault in the middle of the street, so they decided to come to Miami Beach.
As of Friday night, police said, the thieves remain on the loose, and the handbags have not been recovered.
If you have any information on this theft or the subjects’ whereabouts, call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS. Remember, you can always remain anonymous, and you may be eligible for a reward of up to $5,000.
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