Crucian Gold Robbed, Employees Held At Gunpoint

Update: The V.I. Police Department responded to the robbery at 11:15 a.m., indicating that the crime occurred in the morning and not afternoon, as an earlier version of this story implied. According to V.I.P.D. spokesperson Melody Rames, “the suspects secured the two employees who were present in a back room and took an undisclosed amount of jewelry and cash from the business.”

Video Footage of the Crucian Gold robbery shows a red sedan, similar to the one involved in Friday’s Mid-Island Credit Union robbery, fleeing the scene. One person stayed in the vehicle while the two others robbed the store and threatened the employees. According to Nathan Bishop, co-owner of the Crucian Gold store, the two suspects tied up the two female employees and threatened to shoot them if they resisted. Upon robbing the store, the gunmen proceeded to threaten the employees again before escaping, telling them that they would be shot to death if they called the police.

“They took whatever cash was in the store and stole some jewelry,” Bishop revealed. He added that the suspects seemed very organized and were not novices to these criminal acts.

“They are terrorists, bent on hurting and traumatizing the community,” he continued, clearly upset. “This needs to stop or else we’ll have no more businesses operating here.”

Original Story: The Crucian Gold store located in downtown Christiansted was robbed by masked gunmen on Saturday morning, the company has revealed through a post on its Facebook page.

While details were scant as to what exactly was stolen and how many people were involved in the robbery, the Crucian Gold Facebook page revealed the grim nature of the incident.

Apparently two workers were tied and forced to the ground with guns pointed to their heads while the store was being looted, but in the end no one was physically hurt. It’s also not known what exactly was stolen, if the men were captured or if they got away, and the exact time that the robbery occurred.

According to a description of the company’s website, “Crucian Gold is the artist jewelry studio of the Bishop family, located on the Caribbean Island of St. Croix, in the U. S. Virgin Islands”, and offers “uniquely handcrafted, artful jewelry pieces. Creatively designed in gold and silver, each Crucian Gold jewelry piece reflects the islands captivating charm.”

We’ll update this story as more information becomes available.

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that the Crucian Gold store was robbed on Saturday afternoon. That’s incorrect, the robbery occurred in the morning as police were on the scene at about 11:15 a.m. the same day. We’ve updated the story to align with the correct information.