Beverly Grove business owner says thieves stole $150k in goods after using pickup truck to ram store

A group of thieves used a pickup truck to ram their way into a well-known luxury eyewear store in Beverly Grove early Sunday, making off with more than $150,000 worth of merchandise, according to the store's owner. 

House of Frames, located in the 400 block of Fairfax Avenue, has been visited by some big names like Beyoncé, Kim Kardashian and Cardi B over the years, but Sunday's visitors were very unwanted. 

It happened a little before 5 a.m., and security footage shows the moments that a large pickup truck repeatedly reverses into the store's metal gate. It eventually opened a tiny gap, just big enough for the four suspects to get inside. 

Video from inside of the store shows as the masked and gloved thieves ransack the store. One uses a baseball bat to break open cases, while the others sweep the high-end eyeglasses into bags. 

They then ran into a waiting car and fled from the scene by the time police arrived.

Simon Babouchian, the general manager of the store, says that it all happened in about five minutes. During that small window of time, they took off with six figures worth of product and left thousands of dollars of damage behind. 

He says this is the second time that its happened in recent weeks, the first coming on Super Bowl Sunday. 

"They have a plan, they come in with the stolen car, they get picked up with a stolen car," Babouchian said. "They leave the stolen car and they leave with a lot of merchandise that we have to recover and rebuild again."

In the weeks since, they installed a cement wall to reinforce the door, but it was no match for the massive pickup. 

"We were very proud when we built this wall here and we wanted to protect ourselves going forward, not anticipating that this was gonna happen again to us in a short amount of time," Babouchian said. 

The owner of the truck used to ram the store, which was towed away from the area, says that it was previously reported stolen. 

Babouchian is begging city leaders to help businesses stay open as they continue to face these issues. 

"Some businesses don't recover and some people lose everything going through this," he said. "You have to evaluate stuff, is it worth staying? Is it worth rebuilding? Will we get the help? We're optimistic and we know we can get back up, but it just gets harder. The emotional stuff doesn't go away."

He says they aren't alone in facing the recent crimes either, and that another eyewear shop located a few block away was broken into recently, as well as another location in Venice. 

Police say that no arrests have yet been made as they continue their early investigation.