Man robbed $46,000 in jewelry from Belk at Crabtree mall, then tried to pawn the items, police say

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- A Wake County man who police say pulled off a $46,000 jewelry heist from the Belk store at Crabtree Valley Mall ended up behind bars after police said he tried to pawn some of the items.

The night before Thanksgiving, police say 31-year-old Brian Anderson broke into the Belk store and made off with 35 pieces of jewelry.

"I've never, never seen anything like to this scale," said Brian Moulton the son of the owner of National Pawn shops. "That's a little crazy."

Anderson, of Garner, was back in court Wednesday to face charges related to pawning 22 of the items.

It netted him only $1,150, according to an arrest warrant in the case.

And it put his name in front of investigators.

Moulton says the heist appears to be quite a feat.

So he can't understand why Anderson allegedly came to one of his stores to dump part of the haul.

"Surprised that you're smart enough to figure that out and then you bring it into our store where you're basically turning yourself in to the police department," he said.

Moulton said that when items are pawned the seller is asked to show identification.

And at the end of each day, shops are required by law to report what they purchased and the names of the sellers to police.

"We electronically report to them overnight. So I'm sure they were flagging anything like that jewelry-wise that was coming into their system," Moulton said. "They had alerts on it. So I'm sure that definitely popped some red flags on their end."

Mall officials say they can't get into details of the case because it's still under investigation.