Duffs Jewellers: Shocking story of Geelong’s biggest jewellery heist

How a Duffs Jewellers staffer posed as a Perth high-flyer to uncover stolen goods from Geelong’s most brazen heist, as details can be revealed about a man charged in relation to it.

Former Duffs owner David Duff vividly remembers a large robbery at his jewellery store in 1987. Picture: Alison Wynd

David Duff knew something was off as soon as he opened the door.

It was the veteran jeweller’s habit to go into the store on a Sunday to prepare for the next week’s trading.

On December 13, 1987, Duffs Jewellers was particularly busy in the lead-up to Christmas when it was hit in a daring, meticulously-planned raid.

“I opened the front door and the first thing that hit me was the smell,” Mr Duff said.

“The shop smelled different … I went over to the door (of the strong room) and I could see a stream of grey water running out.”

Upstairs, the door to his office – which sat directly above the strong room – was closed. It was never closed overnight.

“I knew there was something wrong. There was a window in the door, I could see the carpet was pulled up and the whole place was in disarray.”

Duff's Jewellers former Moorabool St store the day after the robbery in 1987. Picture: Addy archives

The scale of the robbery would soon become apparent; it was a daring heist, more akin to something out of a movie than the crime Geelong usually saw.

It was a professional job – a heist worthy of Graham “The Munster” Kinniburgh and his infamous safe-cracking gang.

Detectives from Geelong’s crime investigation unit and the infamous major crime squad descended on the scene.

Thieves clambered over rooftops to reach the Moorabool St store, before lowering a 4m rope ladder through the skylight and shimmying down.

Police investigating the break-in had to call the fire brigade to help gain access to the roof.

Inside, the crew ripped up carpet and floorboards and used a diamond-tipped core cutter to cut through the 24cm of reinforced concrete roof of the strong room.

Duff’s strongroom was brimming with diamonds, sapphires, gold items, bracelets, rings and watches.

“Every night we’d pack up and we’d move all our diamonds and precious jewellery into the strongroom … we kept everything there,” Mr Duff said.

“Our big mistake was we didn’t have a sensor in the strongroom, we thought we were impregnable. We weren’t.”

GAD Liviana, one of Duffs Jewellers' “very best staff”, volunteered to join the secret operation.

The thieves also stole at least $30,000 ($87,000 today) in cash and cheques from the previous days’ sales.

Initial estimates put the size of the haul at $500,000 ($1.4m today), but that was cost figures, Mr Duff said, not retail prices.

The true cost of the robbery was more than $1m at least – not least because Duff’s was full of Christmas stock, but because it held jewellery from across regional Victoria.

“We had more jewellery in our store than the Melbourne guys did,” Mr Duff said.

“Not many people would’ve realised a provincial store would have the sort of stock that we did.”

The robbers knew what they were doing, and managed to avoid all the sensors.

In the aftermath, Mr Duff wondered if he’d almost met those responsible – he had recollections of “some things that were not quite right”.

“Some weeks or months before we found a fellow who had somehow got up the stairs to the top floor. He was challenged, asked what he was doing up there … I think he may have been one of the ones, as they say, casing the joint,” Mr Duff said.

“Another time, I was in the strongroom – the door was always open during the day – and this fellow came up to me, looking around.

“He may have been one of the others. You just think about all these things later on.”

During visits to suppliers in Melbourne, he began visiting pawn shops and brokerages looking for Duff’s jewellery but was soon warned to stop by his insurance broker that he had “been seen looking around”

“He said stop it, you don’t know who you are dealing with... these people play for keeps,” he said.

Nothing initially came of the police investigation, as they followed up leads.

“They did a terrific job, but they didn’t know who it was,” Mr Duff said.

At one point, Mr Duff recalled being shown by police a picture of an international crime gang “sitting around a table and a big punch bowl”.

After two years, a whisper surfaced – Duffs jewellery was for sale from a supplier the company had bought gold from before.

Police established an undercover sting, but there was a catch – Mr Duff couldn’t go along to identify the jewellery – he’d be recognised.

“(The police) said, is there anyone on the staff who would be prepared to go undercover?” Mr Duff said.

There was – Liviana, one of Duffs “very best staff”, volunteered to join the secret operation.

“It took a few attempts; there were a few false alarms, a few scare offs,” Mr Duff said.

The first attempt to arrange a meeting was aborted, as was a second a day later.

Posing as a buyer from Perth, the partner of a “high-flyer”, Liviana and the officer were even followed around the streets of Melbourne.

Eventually, on the third day, Liviana and the undercover cops were taken to an upstairs room in the bowels of Melbourne’s CBD.

“If we wanted to escape, we couldn’t,” she said.

“All their stock was in a safe, and then they brought trays out for me to look at.”

Liviana had a code; if she recognised the jewellery, she would tell the officer they could “sell these over in Perth”.

Initially, the suppliers brought out several trays, but they weren’t Duffs.

“I looked at them, and there wasn’t much there. I said no, I told them I want some better stuff,” Livia recalled.

After a while the operation struck gold.

“I picked up a few of the items and I knew it was our stock,” she said.

Duff’s kept meticulous records, including serial numbers engraved the inside of their rings and drawings, measurements and details of each on the books.

In the end, 550 rings were recovered – but it was just a drop in the pool of what was stolen.

Following the undercover operation an arrest was made - a Melbourne diamond dealer.

It can be revealed the man faced court in 1990, charged with handling stolen goods, and was handed a 12-month good behaviour bond.

Mr Duff said the man was “known to police” as a fence and he was known to Duffs - he was the relative of a diamond dealer they had worked with.

Mr Duff said the man had even approached him asking if he wanted to buy jewellery, prior to the heist, an offer Mr Duff turned down.

It is understood the man got involved in the drug trade and got into “all sorts of trouble” Mr Duff said, and later fled Australia.

“I remember one of the cops told me that they opened his safe (at his home in Melbourne) and the amount of stuff he had in there was just absolutely enormous,” Mr Duff said.

The robbery put Duff’s financially “on its knees”, however the company recovered and now, Duff’s is bigger than ever.

However the identity of the thieves looks to remain elusive, as the real culprits were never caught.

Originally published as Duffs Jewellers: Shocking story of Geelong’s biggest jewellery heist