It appeared to be business as usual yesterday at Raffles City’s Cortina Watch, a day after it reported that almost $8 million worth of timepieces had been stolen between Christmas Day and the 26th.

The store – which looked to be in tip-top condition – had more salespeople in the store than customers during a visit.

Dressed in purple shirts and blouses, some were unwrapping new stock of Rolex watches, while others were quick to latch onto any customer who walked in. There were at least 12 sales staff in the store, while the number of customers stood at around six, when BT visited the store, found on the ground floor of the shopping centre, at about 7.30pm.

“It’s a sad time for us,” said one salesperson, but declined to comment further. All other queries were politely diverted by the staff.

One customer, who was told by this reporter about the theft, said that security at the store seemed normal though she felt a few hawkish stares.

“A lot of people were looking at me but I just assumed that they were trying to ring up sales for the New Year,” she told BT.

Two large window panes at the storefront that displayed the watches appeared to be intact and there were no visible signals of higher security, which the company said it would look into following the theft of its watches.

The display cabinets didn’t appear scratched while all the spotlights placed inside also seemed to be working.

Cortina has guided that the theft would have an “adverse impact” on its profits for this financial year.

The company added that it was in talks with its insurers over the unidentified stolen watches and that the case is now under police investigations.

This article was first published in The Business Times on Dec 31, 2008.

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