Four minutes is all it took for two people to break in to KMG Gold on Academy Road early Saturday morning.
Michael Gupton owns the business and caught surveillance video of the pair as they ran into the shop.
Gupton was alerted of the break-in right after police were called. But both people in the surveillance video were long gone by the time anyone got to the store, taking a laptop and causing $2,000 dollars worth of damage in their wake.
"They went into the display cases and they took some items that we use for coins. They're coin collector boxes and tubes. And on the way out, they took my laptop," added Gupton.
Gupton posted the surveillance video online, hoping someone will see it and help police nab the pair.
Police said videos like his can help investigations, but can also compromise them as well.
"What can happen is perhaps that person doesn't know that the video surveillance is in existence and that might be something that's used during the interrogation and secondly it's often not as clear cut," said Const. Eric Hofley of the Winnipeg Police Service.
With the growth of surveillance security systems, businesses and homeowners are posting videos of robberies on the Internet in the hopes that those on social media will help catch culprits.
"We would like the opportunity to have that video in our possession before you're doing anything with it," said Const. Hofley.
Police said videos posted too soon could accidently implicate innocent people who may appear in a video.
The best thing to do instead is to call police first and leave the investigation to them, said police.
Police are still investigating the robbery at KMG Gold.
