NYC JEWELER ROBBED ON NEW YEAR'S AS THE BALL DROPPED

Three burglars waited for the stroke of midnight to pull off a $6 million New Year’s Eve heist. The hooded and masked men broke into a West 36th Street jewelry wholesaler at 12:01 a.m. Sunday in what appears to be an inside job – while 7,000 cops were distracted protecting Times Square revelers just a few blocks away. They made off with around $6 million in gems and are still at large. The burglars were caught on video inside Gregg Ruth, a commercial jewelry store known for its rare yellow and pink diamonds. They came in through a freight entrance – which would have needed a key or someone to leave it open for them – to the sixth floor business and then used a hammer and crow bar to break a lock, gaining access to a room containing four safes. They removed diamond-encrusted and 18 karat gold bracelets, earrings and necklaces from two of the safes. The safes were either already open or the burglars knew the combination. The footage shows one of the suspects talking on a cell phone while he is opening the safe, perhaps receiving the combination from a fourth person, sources said. The trio then fled down a stairwell in the 16-story office tower that lacks any exterior signage about its sixth-floor tenant. Police ask anyone with information of the burglary to call Crimestoppers.
* A little late for that, wouldn’t you say?
* Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Thieves!
* To be fair, not all of those 7,000 distracted cops could have responded. After about 6 or 7 hundred, probably no more cops could have fit up the staircase.
* Somebody dropped the ball, all right. The owner of the jewelry store.
* Suddenly their rare yellow and pink diamonds are even more rare – as in, they don’t have ANY.
* I wouldn’t be surprised if these are the guys responsible for sabotaging Mariah Carey as a distraction from their crime.
* Soon to be a major motion picture starring … ooooo, I’ll say one of the Hemsworths, Aziz Ansari and – who’s that annoying one? Oh – Charlie Day.
* Nobody does the crime like New York. Nobody.
* I mean it. This one made me proud to be an American.
* It’s right out of Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen and Fourteen.
* You could just imagine the meeting of the gang: “Bugs here has a plan.” “Yeah, listen and listen good. We’re going to hit the jewelers there on West 36th Street.” “So what’s the big deal?” “Okay, get this: We’re going in at midnight on New Year’s Eve!” “Wow, I like it, boss.”