This is the moment Romanian thieves broke into a jewellery store from a tattoo parlour next door after smashing down a wall to steal £40,000 worth of precious gems.

Danut Lazar, Cornel Alexandrescu and an unknown man broke into Lev-Ink tattoo shop and then V&N Jewellers in Blyth, Northumberland, before stealing nearly £45,000 in jewels and stock.

The brazen gang began their heist by using a step-ladder to get over a fence and into the tattoo shop's back yard to break in.

Once they were inside, they made a hole through the wall shared with the jewellers before climbing through to the other shop.

Eerie CCTV footage inside the store captured a cabinet shuffling forwards before one of the crook's gloved hands popped out and continued pushing it away from the wall.

A raider wearing a baseball cap and a puffer jacket then climbed out from behind the cabinet armed with a crowbar and torch. 

He quickly flashed the torch around and started to prize open the display cabinets with the tool before grabbing precious gems and stuffing them inside carrier bags.

Just hours after the thieves took off with £39,449 in jewellery and £5,453 in stock from the tattoo parlour, the man caught a ferry from Dover out of the UK.

Lazar, 50, and Alexandrescu, 48, were arrested when they returned to Britain on a flight to Luton a month later.

The thieves both pleaded guilty to two charges of burglary, were jailed and will be deported. 

Lazar was jailed for two years and eight months while Alexandrescu was sentenced to two years in prison. 

The business owners at the stores on Market Street were shaken by the thefts, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Prosecuting, Ian Windridge said the burglars, who were dressed in black, used a step ladder to get over the fence and into the back yard of the parlour.

They then managed to distort the tattoo shop's CCTV cameras to avoid detection but they proceeded to make a hole 'in the wall to the adjoining jewellers,' he said.

'CCTV inside the jewellery shop shows a display cabinet being pushed forward and the three men emerging from the hole and into the main part of the jewellers.

'The CCTV from inside the jewellery shop shows the three men then start to gather the stock.

'The three men left in the same way, taking items from both premises with them.'

In the days leading up to the heist, the men stayed in Durham and carried out reconnaissance trips on the stores in Northumberland, the court heard.

Judge Robert Adams said the burglary was a 'well organised attack on the two premises.'

'You targeted vulnerable premises in the North East of England, having come to the UK for that very purpose.'

The judge added that the two Romanians would serve less than half their time in custody but expected them to 'be kept in custody until you are deported.

'Deportation should be automatic in light of the length of the sentences,' he said.