EDMONTON— A local ‘treasure’ dealer is offering a thousand-dollar reward after thieves broke into his east Edmonton shop with a steel battering ram mounted in the back of a van Saturday.

“The battering ram was probably 10-feet long of steel,” said Clinton Beck, president and founder Beck Antiques & Jewellery Inc., in an interview with StarMetro Edmonton on Sunday.

Footage from the store’s security cameras caught three thieves as they pulled up to Beck Antiques & Jewellery Inc. at 7315 50 St. in a silver van just after 5 a.m. Saturday morning.

The thieves had a steel battering ram in the back of the van. Reversing sharply, they used the battering ram to break through the reinforced door to the store before rushing in, smashing blindly through display cabinets and grabbing what they could before fleeing within 30 seconds.

While three thieves may have made off with a few trays of silver rings and coins, Beck says they are unlikely to get away as the store is equipped with “a James Bond-style security system.”

“There’s nobody more prepared for a robbery than us,” Beck said.











High-definition security cameras recorded their every move while smoke generators rigged to the store’s security system filled the room.

“You can’t rob what you can’t see,” Beck said.

Feeling their way around in the smoke, the thieves indiscriminately smashed through display cases — which Beck said had already been emptied of anything truly valuable when they closed the shop for the night — before grabbing a few silver rings and coins, which Beck valued at around $5,000 combined.

One of the items they stole, Beck said, is a Franklin Mint Mayan coin set. While Beck said it is worth a few hundred dollars, the set is rare and would be easily recognized by another coin collector.

“It’s a very rare item,” Beck said. “There’s probably only one (in Edmonton) like it”

When you make a name as a dealer in rare antiques and high-end vintage jewelry over three decades, selling “everything from military items from WWI and WWII to suits of armor to silver and crystal,” Beck said, you are likely to attract unwanted attention.

“We literally have had robberies every year for the last 30 years, so I’m used to this,” Beck said.

However, he says desperate times have seen robberies at stores like his skyrocket, though he’s never seen another case in Edmonton where they used a battering ram.

“It’s just an epidemic,” Beck said, “there’s been a dozen in the last year.”

His staff have endured three robberies, including an attempted armed robbery, in the last three months.

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Security footage from Beck Antiques & Jewellery in Edmonton shows three thieves robbing the store after using a steel battering ram in the back of a van to smash through the doors of the store on Saturday, June 9, 2018.

That’s why Beck said he has invested in state-of-the-art security.

“That’s our philosophy here, to be the hardest place to rob in town,” Beck said, adding Edmonton Police have had a good track record of catching thieves who have robbed his stores in the past.

While he is working with the police, Beck is offering $1,000 in store credit to anyone with information leading to the arrest of the thieves.

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