A jewelry vendor says he was robbed at gunpoint Tuesday night.
Faruk Celik said he was leaving a jewelry store on Powerline Road and Palmetto Park Road with a bag of diamond jewelry worth nearly $200,000.
He says he entered his rental car in the parking lot at about 5:45 in the evening. As soon as he shut the door, two men with masks approached the driver and passenger side windows. He says the men broke the windows. The man at the driver's side pointed a gun at Celik while the man on the passenger side took the bag of jewelry.
"I really got scared. I don't want to die. I'm too young," Celik remembers thinking.
He says it all happened in a matter of seconds. The robbers got into a white, 4-door Mercedes Benz and sped off with the jewelry. He thinks there might have been one or two more people inside the Mercedes.
He says he immediately thought of this three children.
"I'm trying to make a living, trying to support them. I'm glad nothing happened to me. That's all I'm happy about," the single father explains.
The Palm Beach County Sheriff's office is looking for the suspects.
Detectives believe Celik was targeted and the thieves may have been following him for some time, waiting to the opportunity to rob him.
Celik says he is happy to be alive, but is taking some time away from his business because the incident scared him so much. He works for a wholesaler, acting as a middle man between jewelry makers and dealers.
He won't sleep soundly until the robbers are in jail.
"I would do anything for them to be caught. They are bad people," he says.
If you have any information, call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-8477
