Clown Thieves Get Punked in Jewelry Heist

Send in the clowns: Two gun-waving robbers dressed in clown makeup and wigs robbed a Denver jewelry story yesterday, roughing up employees and stripping display cases clean. They made off with the loot after a 15-minute robbery, notes CBS4, but there's a caveat: The precious stones aren't so precious.

Turns out that because of the skyrocketing price of the shiny things one finds in jewelry stores, display cases are full of imitations. “A lot of (what was stolen) are samples that are done in silver and they are plated, and the robbers don’t know that,” says a co-owner. “You don’t want to get killed over anything, but especially if it’s not real.” (More armed robbery stories.)