A 61-year-old employee of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City lost a gold Rolex watch valued at US $8,000 in a mugging at a store in Polanco on Sunday.

According to witnesses, the woman was inside a store at 513 Horacio street when a young man pushed her to the ground, threatened her with a gun and removed her watch.

The aggressor is described as being well-dressed and thin, 1.65 meters tall and appearing to be about 25 years of age, with brown skin, dark hair, a straight nose, oval face, with no facial hair or tattoos.

Witnesses said the robber escaped in a red Audi whose plate number was MUJ-5335.

Police reviewed security camera footage from the business where the theft took place as well as other businesses, and were able to track the thief’s escape route. One of the cameras may have even captured his face.

The watch is described as silver with a pink face and a metal band. Mexico City police have the watch’s serial number, and are working with embassy staff to capture the robber.

Muggings have risen 28% in Mexico City in the first six months of the current administration’s term.

This is not the first time that an employee of the U.S. Embassy has been robbed in Mexico City.

The embassy is considering the possibility of limiting its employees’ movement on the streets, reported the newspaper El Universal, or even taking the more extreme measure of issuing a travel warning for Mexico City, a measure that has been taken in places like Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, Michoacán and Acapulco.

Source: El Universal (sp)