It was over in moments, more like a scene from an American heist film than an ordinary Sunday afternoon in Bratislava. A group of masked individuals carried out a brazen robbery at a jewellery shop in the city’s Zlaté Piesky shopping centre last week.
Seven thieves, dressed in white overalls and black masks and even carrying umbrellas to obscure themselves, stormed the store in broad daylight on 30 November. Armed with hammers and axes, they smashed the display cases and swept up handfuls of jewellery as shoppers looked on in shock.
According to local media, the shopping centre was open and busy at the time of the raid. The gang fled the scene and remains at large. If caught and convicted, the perpetrators face between seven and 12 years in prison.
Police have not yet disclosed the value of the stolen goods.
Footage of the robbery has since become fodder for several satirical Facebook pages, which argue that crime is rising in the wake of last year’s changes to the Criminal Code — a trend the government has long denied, often accusing the media and the opposition of exaggerating the issue. Ministers have recently begun to acknowledge that a problem exists, echoing concerns raised for months by municipalities and businesses.
People aren’t stealing only jewellery. In November, thieves made off with more than 100 items of clothing worth nearly €3,000 from a shopping centre in Bratislava’s Petržalka district — all within a matter of minutes.
The Sunday robbery is the latest in a series of high-profile attacks on jewellery stores in the Slovak capital. In 2019, seven men made off with €500,000 worth of jewellery from a shop in Bratislava’s Bory Mall. In 2010, another group of seven robbed a jewellery shop at the Aupark shopping centre, escaping with goods valued at €300,000.
More recently, in 2022, two robbers wearing motorcycle helmets targeted a store at the Carlton Hotel, stealing 14 watches worth €150,000. One of the men, a Serbian national, was later arrested in Vienna; the second suspect was detained in Switzerland. And in 2018, several watches worth €500,000 were taken from a jewellery shop on Panská Street.