Two young men from Bristol face a lengthy spell in prison for robbing jewellery stores around the West Country, after the getaway car they were driving was caught by police using a stinger device.
Dolari Amet and Samet Zsiga went to Devizes in Wiltshire last Friday, January 31, walked into Estcourt Jewellers at lunchtime and grabbed a display tray containing more than £8,000 worth of gold jewellery.
The robbery sparked a major police operation and within three hours, the getaway car the pair were driving was the subject of a hard stop by police, who deployed a stinger and boxed them in on the A350 – the main road near Chippenham – as they were heading back to the M4 and Bristol, three hours after the theft.
Police then linked the pair, who are both from Easton in Bristol, to a series of other offences, including the theft of around £20,000 worth of jewellery from a store in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.
Dolari Amet is 19 and from Belle Vue Road in Easton, while Samet Zsiga is 20 and from nearby St Marks Road. On Friday evening they were charged with the Devizes jeweller’s robbery, the theft of £20,000 from a jeweller’s in Cheltenham a week earlier on Thursday, January 23, and the theft of £800 worth of clothing from Sports Direct in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, on November 15. Amet, who was driving the car, was also charged with driving without insurance.
The pair appeared before magistrates in Swindon on Saturday morning and both pleaded guilty to all the charges put to them. They were remanded in custody and will appear at Swindon Crown Court on March 14 to be sentenced.
Police chiefs in Wiltshire hailed the arrests as an example of quick police work, after the robbery was reported on Friday lunchtime.
“This is a great example of various departments within Wiltshire Police pulling together to achieve a great, swift result,” said Chief Supt Doug Downing, the head of Local Policing. “Amet and Zsiga made off with a tray of gold jewellery from a jewellery store in Devizes, and within three hours our Specialist Operations teams were able to safely sting them and box them in on the A350.
“Following great work by our Volume Crime Team, they were charged and remanded into custody and appeared in court the following day, pleading guilty to the offences. We appreciate the significant impact that shoplifting has on businesses, particularly for high-value thefts like these from jewellers.
“We constantly work with our retailers and concentrate on the issues important to them, and we will not hesitate to put offenders before the courts,” he added.