Hotel Thieves Steal $550,000 in Jewelry

PLACENTIA — Two thieves broke into a hotel room with a crowbar and took a suitcase loaded with jewelry, mostly diamonds, estimated at $550,000, police said Wednesday.

A traveling jewelry salesman had left his room at the Holiday Inn on East Orangethorpe Avenue about 8 p.m. Tuesday to get a soda down the hall, Police Investigator Corinne Loomis said. He told police that when he returned, two men were running away and his suitcase was missing, Loomis said.

“It is likely that he had been followed,” Loomis said. Jewelry salesmen “are usually trained in basic security measures to guard against being followed, but there’s only so much they can do.”

The salesman, whose name was withheld by authorities for his protection, works for a New York jewelry company and lives near San Diego, Loomis said. The suspects were still at large Wednesday, investigators said.