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Capitol Hill shop suffers $51K jewelry heist

Security image provided by Fresh Tangerine

Capitol Hill retailer and designer Fresh Tangerine suffered a devastating hit to the young business after an early morning burglary last week that emptied the E Pine store of thousands of dollars — and months of work — in handmade jewelry.

“We lost 2,085 pieces of inventory which is a retail value of $51,887 along with a couple of other of jewelry items from our cash drawer,” owner Kim Kogane said of the Thursday, October 10th, 5 AM break-in. “It took us a couple of months to create that much inventory and plus all of the labor from Operations to Quality Control everything, package it, and transport it to the store. It is a devastating loss for the business especially as we move into our busiest time of year.”

Kogan says it took only four minutes for the burglary to play out.

According to police, a restaurant in the 400 block of Broadway E was also hit in a similar fashion not long after the Fresh Tangerine break-in Thursday morning. The restaurant lost an undisclosed amount of cash in the burglary.

Fresh Tangerine opened in a the retail space next to E Pine’s Molly Moon’s in the Odd Fellows Building this summer in an expansion from Kogane’s original studio and shop in Pioneer Square.

Commercial burglaries were reported down across the East Precinct through the first four months of the year until SPD’s system upgrades knocked public access to the statistics offline until a hoped for restoration later this year. Typically, the E2 precinct beat covering the core of Pike/Pine, Broadway, and much of central Capitol Hill suffers around 60 reported commercial burglaries per year. You can review crime statistics and trends here on the Capitol Hill Crime Dashboard.

If you have any information that might help track down Fresh Tangerine’s lost creations, give police a call. And consider stopping through the shop at 919 E Pine to help boost the mood after such a sour experience.

 

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15 Comments
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iluvcaphill
iluvcaphill
4 years ago

Um, have they heard of a safe? I mean, I’m sad for them, but they must take some responsibility. I see the jewelers downtown meticulously display and put away their entire inventories every night. That’s just what you do when you sell valuables. How did your insurance company let you get away with such lax storage of such valuable items. Waiting for the inevitable gofundme page.

CD Rez
CD Rez
4 years ago
Reply to  iluvcaphill

Everything about your post sucks

Iluvcaphill
Iluvcaphill
4 years ago
Reply to  CD Rez

Awww. Too bad.

Tom
Tom
4 years ago
Reply to  iluvcaphill

You don’t think the jewelers downtown have more resources to install better security than her? We also don’t know for sure she doesn’t have a safe. A cash drawer is not big enough to store 2000 items. I hope people jump down your throat when something bad happens to you.

Cat
Cat
4 years ago
Reply to  Tom

I don’t think its an issue of resources per se, its more about cost/benefit analysis of the investment in security vs. the risk.

For example, an ‘executive vault’ at Costco costs a little less than 1k. So 1k of investment vs. the $51k in lost value plus the operational resources to handle the loss seems like a good investment to me.

Christy Barnes
Christy Barnes
4 years ago
Reply to  iluvcaphill

You are a horrible person and Karma is a bitch.

J Alfred Prufrock
J Alfred Prufrock
4 years ago

Even if caught and convicted/pleaded out what sort of punishment would these dream wreckers expect in the Seattle/King County justice system

Jon
Jon
4 years ago

Pete Holmes would not prosecute them anyhow. Business owners and decent citizens are the enemy; criminals are victims.

Edward Everett
Edward Everett
4 years ago

Sorry to say it;but, all of the stolen goods are probably out of the state by now. Wow, 4 minutes to steal over 2000 pieces? Sounds like a professional gang to me. I feel sorry for the owners, the jewelry is pretty and doesn’t look cheap. Sure, they have insurance; but, look at all the work they have to do to get the inventory back up.

Cat
Cat
4 years ago
Reply to  Edward Everett

Agree. This is an organized heist. Same thing happens to music (instrument) stores which is why they all have bars. Recall that Georgetown Music lost a fortune in instruments in a similar burglary a few years ago, which they estimated a truck backed up to the business, pulled the doors and metal gates off, and loaded up a van in only a few minutes.

Cat
Cat
4 years ago
Reply to  Edward Everett

One more thought – I’d bet the perpetrators visited the store for planning purposes before executing the heist. If they have cameras in the shop, they might be able to figure out who did this. I managed a store in Madison Valley and we had some people casing the place and another shop in the area. It was so obvious because they were completely not the typical customer, and they were not from Seattle.

CHSeattle
CHSeattle
4 years ago

I think Egan Orion is behind this robbery.

Bradley
Bradley
4 years ago
Reply to  CHSeattle

Nah, Egan doesn’t need it…he’s flush with Amazon cash.

reft
4 years ago

another crime fueled by high rents and evil big businesses!!!!!

Alex S.
Alex S.
4 years ago

OfferUp is a place where most of these tweakers love to sell their stolen stuff