On Wednesday evening, a man posing as a customer attempted to run away with $43,000 in diamond rings from Glennpeter's Colonie Center store.
But thanks to a quick-acting employee, and an off duty police officer the man was tackled and arrested carrying the tray of jewelry, and the merchandise was returned to the counter.
But, just nine hours later, Glennpeter Owner David Blackmore received a disturbing phone call from his security company.
A dispatcher told him his Central Avenue store had been broken into.
When Blackmore arrived at the location a few minutes later he couldn't believe his eyes. A large showroom window at the back of the store had been smashed, and inside there were broken display cases and shards of glass as far as the eye could see.
Colonie Police Lt. Robert Winn says the entire burglary all happened in only a matter of minutes just after 2:30 a.m. on Thursday.
A total of 17 display cases, and thousands of dollars in jewelry were stolen.
Blackmore said, "Now that sounds terrible, and in reality it is, but the 'terrible' is that the cost of repairing all of these glass showcases is probably more than, in reality, the loss of jewelry itself."
And despite the big heist, the owner says, the losses actually could have been much worse.
Back on the 4th of July Glennpeter's Halfmoon store was burglarized in the same way; a smash and grab.
And that time, the thieves got away with more than $75,000 worth of loot.
"And from that we learned how to do a better job of putting more jewelry away," Blackmore said. "So we had 95 percent of the valuable jewelry put away in our vaults."
And that move no doubt saved Glennpeter tens of thousands in jewelry losses.
Lt. Winn says the Central Ave. heist is similar to the store's Halfmoon case, and one at least one other in Colonie.
Winn said, "This is consistent with a couple other burglaries of jewelry stores in the area. We had one in October at a jewelry store on Route 9 in Newton Plaza, and state police are investigating one at another Glennpeter, further up in Halfmoon."
And after hearing about other smash and grabs happening while a store was open, Roman Jewels on Western Avenue now keeps display cases empty all the time.
Roman's Owner Marcella Michel said, "If customers want to see a specific piece, we'll take it out of the vault," she said.
"I mean, a handful of gold these days is worth 2 or 3 thousand dollars, and it only takes a minute, and they're out the door. So we have been taking precautionary measures," Michel said.
Meanwhile Glennpeter's owner is confident these burglars will be caught.
"They definitely will, eventually, catch these gentleman," Blackmore said.
"They have enough evidence. They have film footage, DNA evidence, these gentleman will eventually get caught," he said.
And when Blackmore says police have "DNA evidence" in this case he's referring to the blood detectives found on two different display cases.
One of the burglars apparently got cut on while smashing and grabbing the loot.
Although Glennpeter Jewelers was able to provide police with very clear surveillance footage of the burglars rummaging through the Halfmoon store, the same is not true about the Central Ave. incident.
Much like the Halmoon location, the Central Ave. Glennpeter location is outfitted with dozens of high end surveillance cameras for security.
But Blackmore says thanks to a power surge brought by Tropical Storm Irene, the surveillance system's mother board was fried, and the company was still waiting for a part when the break-in happened.
Not a single frame of video was recorded during the burglary.
Blackmore says the damage to the jewelry display cases alone is expected to cost the store a minimum of $25,000.
