Burglars steal over $200,000 in luxury handbags from Newport Beach boutique

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. () — Three burglars smashed their way into a Newport Beach luxury handbag boutique early Sunday morning, stealing what the owner estimates to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in designer merchandise before fleeing in two high-end vehicles.

Surveillance video from The Bella Abby and Ava shows the burglars kicking down the front door and quickly filling garbage bags with luxury purses. Owner Jennifer Sprenger said the thieves appeared to know exactly what they were looking for.

“They went right to the Chanels, they wiped out all of those, then they grabbed all of the Hermès, and then they just started throwing things down. When you have a team of three people, it’s probably pretty easy, in three minutes, to get a lot of stuff,” Sprenger said. “They took all the jewelry. I’m just very sad. My heart is broken.”

In a matter of minutes, the thieves left with stuffed garbage bags worth over $200,000 — all before 4 a.m.

The suspects drove away in two luxury cars, which the staff identified as a brand-new BMW 4 Series and a Mercedes-Benz GLC 300 Gran Coupé — both without identifiable license plates.

“These criminals cannot be allowed to just keep going around and ransacking and stealing from people. I’m a single mom. I have three daughters in college, and here I am, working to take care of my family. To have them rob me of half of my inventory, it’s not right,” Sprenger said.

Sprenger operates two other stores in California. She opened the Newport Beach boutique, which sells new luxury handbags, about a year ago. She thinks that the burglars had thoroughly planned it out and had knowledge of the store’s ins and outs.

“They knew where the lights were. They shut off the video cameras. They turned cameras. How would they know where all this was? It’s like it was a very well thought-out, planned attack,” she said.

The owner is now adding extra security measures and working with a private investigator to help identify the burglars. She is also offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the prosecution of those responsible.

“I really tried to do everything I could to protect the facility, but these people just, they knew what they were doing. They’re not first timers, there is no doubt about it,” Sprenger said.