The front door held. The wall did not.

The FBI is now offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information leading to the arrest of Alberto Perez-Elias, the last fugitive charged in the armed robbery of Tio Jewelers in Cape Coral, Florida. National Jeweler reported the reward on September 10, and the bureau has published its own wanted notice.

What authorities allege happened

Prosecutors say the robbery took place on January 6, 2026. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Perez-Elias and another man got into the jewelry store by breaking through the wall of a vacant business next door, held the store manager at gunpoint, gained access to the safe, and left with jewelry worth more than $1 million.

Officials say all four men charged in the case fled to Miami afterward. Three were later arrested. Perez-Elias remains at large and has been added to the FBI's wanted list. He faces federal charges of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery, interference with commerce by robbery, and use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.

National Jeweler reports that the stolen property included merchandise belonging to repair and pawn customers, which is the detail most jewelers in the trade will feel in their stomach.

Every one of those points is an allegation. No one is convicted by a charging document or a wanted poster. Perez-Elias is presumed innocent unless and until a court says otherwise, and the reward is for information leading to an arrest, not a verdict.

What the FBI asks the public to do

The bureau describes Perez-Elias as armed and dangerous and asks that the public not attempt to apprehend him. Anyone with information is asked to contact their local FBI office, the nearest American embassy or consulate, or to submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov. The physical description and background details in the wanted notice are published by the FBI itself; I am not going to expand on them here beyond what the bureau chose to release.

The part of this case that should change how jewelers think

I have worked in and around jewelry stores long enough to know how security budgets get spent. The money goes to the front. Laminated glass at the entrance. A camera over the door. A buzzer, maybe a mantrap, a good showcase lock, a safe rated for what is in it.

Now read the allegation again. They did not come through the front. They came through the wall of an empty unit next door.

A shared wall is a door that nobody inspects. In a strip center or a converted building, the partition between your store and the next tenant is often studs and drywall, sometimes a single course of block, and almost never treated as part of the security envelope. It has no glass break sensor, no camera pointed at it, no alarm zone of its own. And when the neighboring space goes vacant, it stops having anything else either. No staff, no lights, no one to notice a saw running on a Tuesday morning.

A perimeter checklist that does not help criminals

None of this is secret. It is what any insurance loss-control inspector will tell you, and it is worth writing down.

  • Know your neighbors and know when a unit goes empty. A vacancy adjacent to your store is a change in your risk profile, and your insurer and alarm company should both hear about it.
  • Ask your alarm provider to cover the full envelope, not just openings. Interior motion, vibration and structural sensing exist precisely for this attack, and a monitored central station matters more than the number of devices.
  • Reinforce shared walls where the layout allows it. Options range from steel sheeting and mesh to block infill. Your landlord, your insurer and a licensed contractor should be in that conversation together.
  • Point at least one camera inward at the vault area rather than only at the entrance and the cases. If the entry point is not the door, a door camera records nothing useful.
  • Keep the safe rating honest. A safe is rated in minutes against specific tools. Understand what yours is rated for and stop storing above that line.
  • Document inventory continuously with photographs, weights, serial numbers and stone reports. After a loss, your claim is only as strong as your records.

Customer property is the wound that does not close

Merchandise you own is an insurance problem. Merchandise your customers left with you is a trust problem, and it does not settle with a check.

Repair intake and pawn collateral are usually other people's heirlooms. A grandmother's ring. A first anniversary band. A chain someone bought the week they signed a deal. If those pieces leave in a bag, no policy limit fixes what the customer actually lost.

So treat customer property as a separate class of risk. Store it separately and store it locked, not in a drawer or a bench pan overnight. Confirm in writing that your policy covers customer goods in your care, custody and control, and confirm the limit is realistic for how much you hold during a busy repair season. Photograph and describe every intake piece at the counter, with the customer watching. Keep intake volume low by turning work around quickly. And know before anything happens exactly how you will tell a customer their piece is gone, because doing that badly is its own kind of loss.

The takeaway

A million dollars in jewelry walked out of a Florida store through a hole in a wall, if prosecutors are right, and one man charged in the case is still gone. The lesson is not fear. It is that your store's weakest surface is probably one you have never photographed, never sensored, and never thought of as yours.

Anyone with information about this case can contact the FBI directly. Do not approach him.