Masked men stole around 240 luxury watches worth a reported USD 1.29 million from a Hong Kong store in a matter of minutes early today, police said.
The three burglars, who were also wearing hats, snatched the watches after they used a hammer to smash the glass door of the ground floor shop at around 6:30 am local time.
Watch shop robberies are rare in the southern Chinese city of seven million people, where only one such incident was recorded last year among a total of around 76,000 reported crimes.
"We believe they were experienced because the incident took place within around three minutes," police chief inspector Ma Kai-keung told reporters. Police have not made any arrests.
The watches were reported by the South China Morning Post to be worth around HKD 10 million (USD 1.29 million).
Footage from Cable Television News showed heavily damaged glass display tables and a metal hammer at the shop, which was littered with glass fragments.
The trio made their escape after they boarded a grey van parked around the corner of the store, Cable TV reported.
