Police look for links between Schaumburg and Indiana hole-in-the-wall jewel heists

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The investigation of a brazen jewelry store heist in a northwestern Chicago suburb is widening as police officials tell the ABC7 I-Team they are now looking into other similar incidents where thieves made entry to the businesses by cutting through walls; a plot that sounds more like Hollywood than the Midwest.

The most recent jewelry store burglary targeted Marquise Jewelry in Schaumburg's Woodfield Mall last Friday night, where suspects cut holes in the walls of several adjacent stores before entering the jewelry store and made off with diamonds, gold and other merchandise worth as much as $1.5 million, according to the store's owners.

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Now, Schaumburg's police chief has confirmed that detectives are investigating "similar incidents" as the I-Team learned of another heists with a similar modus operandi that took place less than two weeks earlier at a jewelry store in northwest Indiana.

In Valparaiso, Indiana, 55 miles southeast of Chicago, behind the racks of shirts and pants for sale at a Maurice's clothing store on Laporte Avenue, a large board nailed to the wall covers the likely entrance thieves used to get into the Kay Jewelers next door last month.

Valparaiso police told the I-Team on July 23, shortly after closing at approximately 9:50 p.m., officers responded to an alarm that went off at the Kay Jewelers. They discovered someone had made a "forced entry" into the Maurice's clothing store next door.

Police found "cut holes in the drywall between this business and Kay Jewelers," but the burglars were nowhere to be found, escaping with an undisclosed treasure.

Kay Jewelers did not respond to the I-Team's request for comment.

Valparaiso police told the I-Team, "law enforcement agencies who have experienced similar incidents are exchanging information." That would include Schaumburg police, with the hole-in-the-wall jewel heist that occurred ten days later at Marquise Jewelry.

Asma Anwar, the owner of Marquise Jewelry, told ABC7 she was told by police that there may have been up to six people involved, and the thieves covered one of the surveillance cameras to avoid detection. Anwar and her co-owner said they were left shaken.

"I just hope that these, whoever did this to us, doesn't do it to someone else," Anwar said on Monday.

Schaumburg Police Chief Bill Wolf told the I-Team that, "this case is complex," and that they "are investigating things from multiple angles, including but not limited to similar incidents in the area."

ABC7 Police Affairs Consultant and former suburban police chief Bill Kushner told the I-Team that's what he would be doing.

"I know this is a through-the-wall burglary, so that's really kind of unusual," Kushner said. "They'll be looking to see if there are any burglaries of this type, anywhere within reasonable distance of Schaumburg in the last six-months to a year, and try and find the similarities between those cases."

The I-Team found there were other similar jewel heists in Fairfield, Ohio, and Rock Hill, South Carolina last year.

A spokesperson for Rock Hill police said authorities from Illinois and Indiana have not contacted them regarding their hole-in-the-wall break in last December.

As the I-Team reported on Tuesday, there was a more notorious "Hole in the Wall Gang" in play 45 years ago, run by a group of Chicago mobsters who swiped millions in gemstones.

Their antics are part of the Robert DeNiro movie "Casino" and have been detailed in countless books and magazines.