Wild video shows how NYC scammers attacked elderly woman, robbing $500 billion worth of jewelry

The disturbing video shows the moment two brazen scammers snuck into a jewelry store in Queens – past an elderly woman desperately trying to keep them out – during this week’s half-million-dollar heist.

“They put a gun to her head and said, ‘Open the safe! Open the safe! But my mom didn’t know. She was utterly terrified,” Diamond Direct store owner Eva Chen, 43, told The Post of the horror in broad daylight.

Chen said her mother Yuchi Lin, 79, had just flown in from Taiwan for a visit a few hours earlier when her daughter went out for lunch and left her mom in charge of the store in downtown Flushing around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.

While Chen was away, someone wearing an Amazon courier jacket left a package outside the door, she said Thursday.

The man then hid in a nearby flight of stairs with an accomplice, waiting for an unsuspecting senior to come after him, according to Chen, who described her family as “close friends” of Mayor Eric Adams.

“My mom didn’t know” the famous delivery man was still around, Chen told The Post on Thursday.

“She waited 3-4 minutes – she thought that the guy had already left. So she opened the door to pick up the package, but the guy immediately ran into her and then yelled at the other guy who was hiding downstairs to get up.”

Footage obtained by The Post shows Lin peeking out the store door as she goes to get a package, then quickly trying to close it when a man dressed as an Amazon runs up to her.

The suspect catches the door and pushes past the defenseless senior into the store, while his black-clad accomplice, who was still hiding on the stairs, also sneaks in.

The couple attacked the elder and stole at least half a million dollars’ worth of goods from the store, police said.

“My mom said they hit the glass and then pushed her,” Chen said. “She couldn’t even walk on her own. They pushed her and dragged her into the office because they wanted her to open the safe.

“My mom didn’t have a key,” Chen explained, adding that at that moment, the scammers held a gun to her wounded mother’s head.

Authorities say the jewel thieves “punched, kicked and hit a 79-year-old employee in the head with a gun” during a violent robbery.

A previously released video of the robbery shows one of the men pushing past the woman as she twirls at his feet.

His masked partner – with a reusable shopping bag in one hand – draws a gun from his belt as the older woman raises her arm above her head in self-defense.

In another clip, a woman can be seen cringing on the floor as glass from a broken jewelry insert falls around her.

Police say about $500,000 worth of goods were stolen, but Chen estimates the total is closer to $1 million.

Lin was initially hospitalized in a stable condition but has since returned home, where she is recovering, her daughter said.

She received multiple bruises, including a large one on her head.

“My mom is very scared, but she is getting better,” her daughter said.

To make matters worse, Lin, who only comes to Queens twice a year, arrived in Queens hours before the brutal robbery and was still jet lag on Thursday, her daughter said.

Chen said someone called her just the day before with an Amazon.com caller ID.

The woman who called asked when the store was opening and said that two parcels would be delivered.

Chen didn’t realize something was fishy until a robbery happened that shocked her mother.

“I felt weird,” she said of the phone call. “Only me [ordered] one delivery to my jewelry store. Do I have two deliveries? Later, when it happened, I remembered my memory and just noticed how strange it was.

An Amazon spokesman told WNBC that it “has not confirmed whether the person concerned is delivering packages for Amazon, but is coordinating with law enforcement as the investigation progresses.”

On Friday, the suspects remained at large.

“I would really like the detectives to be able to arrest them,” Chen said. “It can happen to anyone, right? Put on a suit, knock on the door – your parents, your children – open the door, and they have a gun!

“They can kill anyone. It’s really crazy. They are wearing a suit. They could wear a police suit, they could wear a Con Edison suit.”

Chen told The Post that she was pushing for greater security in the Asian community and in the city as a whole.

“After the pandemic, so many robberies [and] you know, gunshots in the street,” Chen said. “My neighbor, the hairdresser, gets robbed twice a week.”

“Restaurant [on the other side] robbed,” she added. “We have so many homeless people at night that we are really terrified.”

Wednesday’s robbery was the final straw for Chen, a Glen Oaks native who says she now plans to move her business elsewhere.

“I feel very insecure and I’m done with it, so I’m moving,” she said. “Yeah, I won’t let that happen to me again.”