Four men with bandanas covering their faces threw a salesman from Texas to the ground in the parking lot of a Johnny Carino's restaurant, at 10585 S. State St., Tuesday night and took his car keys. Apparently aware of the man's occupation and where he kept his wares, the robbers then opened the man's trunk and took the more than $150,000 in diamonds and gold.

In a move eerily similar to a handful of other cases along the Wasatch Front in recent years, the robbers slashed the salesman's tire before driving away east on 10600 South.

The episode fits "to a T" how robbers have pulled off several robberies from Draper to Ogden in recent years, FBI spokesman Juan Becerra said.

When Becerra was assigned to the Salt Lake County Metro Gang Unit, he helped investigate a similar heist in Draper in 2003.

In that case, three masked men stopped a traveling jewelry salesman as he walked to a Holiday Inn Express, took the $1 million in jewelry he held and his car keys and slashed his tires. Salt Lake County deputies called in the description of the getaway car and license plate number to Los Angeles police - who had been investigating international crime rings connected to jewelry heists - and the bandits were caught pulling into their California driveway, Becerra said.

Police at the time believed the men were part of the same ring of thieves who got away with $1 million in jewels in 1998 by robbing a salesman in the parking lot of Cottonwood Mall and slashing his tires.

Despite the arrest, one thing remained a mystery to Becerra.

"For whatever reason, they seem to know when these guys are out and about," he said.

Since the 2003 bust, police have reported a series of similar robberies that remain unsolved:

* On Jan. 10, 2007, three armed men robbed a jewel wholesaler of an undisclosed amount of diamonds in the parking lot of a Murray Holiday Inn Express as the salesman walked to his car. One of the robbers slashed a tire of the man's car.

* On May 17, 2006, a diamond salesman from Israel was walking to his hotel in Murray when two men with guns approached him and took a briefcase containing $200,000 in jewelry.

* In 2006, Orem police reported two nearly identical robberies by armed men in the parking lot of a Hampton Inn. In the first, on Aug. 8, a jewelry salesman from Great Neck, N.Y., was stripped of two duffel bags that didn't end up containing any jewels. In the second, on Nov. 9, a man jumped out of a minivan and stole two duffel bags with about $5,000 in jewelry.

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* JASON BERGREEN contributed to this article.