In just 55 seconds, three men armed with machetes stole dozens of high-end mobile phones worth around €40,000 from a store in Forum Barreiro. Throughout the robbery, an employee had a nearly 50cm blade pressed to his neck, which was witnessed by the victim’s girlfriend, who was in the store watching the whole thing. The trio struck at 9pm on Wednesday, when there was little activity in the area due to a football game. They broke in, detained an employee, and then began stuffing backpacks – according to the owner of NP4Game, they took only used iPhones, the cheapest of which cost around €500 a pop.
The victim’s girlfriend managed to escape unnoticed and alert a mall security guard, who was powerless to stop the escape of the group, who emerged into the street wielding machetes and were still on the run Thursday.
This is the third robbery of NP4Game stores since December, the others took place in Porto and Matosinhos.