It’s not all that unusual in other cities around the world, but Dubai has had its first ram-raid and it’s big news.

Photo by Gulf News reader Hussein.

Front page in all the papers, first item on the radio news, the talk of the town. Dubai’s first ram-raid. In the luxury Wafi Mall, the target was the most expensive jewellery shop in the city.

Reports vary wildly so it’ll be a few days before we get the accurate details. What we do know for sure is that two stolen cars were driven through the front doors of the mall, one reversed into the jewellery shop frontage, in less than two minutes the raiders, at least one of whom was armed, got away with millions of dollars in diamonds. All in front of evening shoppers.

Reports vary from the hysterical “six gunmen all armed with machine guns, shots were fired” to the more restrained “one of the four raiders had a pistol, the others had hammers”.

Police are said to have arrived in three minutes, but the raiders were out in one minute 45 seconds.

They raided Graff jewellery store and stole diamonds worth, according to unconfirmed reports, more than AED50 million (US$13.6 million). The store owners are still checking exactly what was stolen.

Dubai has been, still is in fact, one of the world’s safest cities. Goods are left unattended overnight in full view, jewellery stores don’t put their stock away at night as happens in other cities, it’s all left on display in the windows. The gold souk has over 130 shops packed side-by-side in a small street, all of them crammed full with literally tonnes of gold and precious stones. Occasionally you may see one policeman wandering around the souk.

Sadly, I guess we’ll now have to see more security around the city, more preventive measures being taken.