Thieves cut through wall, safe to steal over $1 million of jewelry from South Barrington store

SOUTH BARRINGTON, Ill. (WLS) -- Thieves stole over $1 million worth of jewelry from a suburban store last month. The store owner is now offering a reward to recover the lost inventory.

South Barrington police said they cut a hole in the wall and the back of the safe to get inside. The thieves even cut the power to the building so the surveillance cameras stopped working.

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Police believe the crime happened late at night on Mother's Day when few people were around. It involved a large crew of burglars who apparently knew what they were looking for and were prepared to go to great lengths to get it.

Jewelry store owner Rick Kleinvehn opened the safe Thursday to show ABC7 what burglars got away with: basically everything.

Thieves cleaned out the safe, which held more than $1 million worth of jewelry. They apparently used a wet saw to cut through the 1-inch-thick solid steel walls.

"This wasn't just some random teens out for the night," Kleinvehn said. "It was people that had the equipment and knew exactly what they were doing."

Before even breaking into the business, the burglars cut internet service to the entire complex, disabling some of the store's security, police said. They got into the business by cutting a hole in the wall of the vacant office next door.

Then, the thieves disabled all cameras, even making off with the DVR that would have saved the security video. It was a brand new state of the art security system, but all that was left was disconnected wires. Then they got to work.

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Kleinvehn believes they were inside for several hours.

"With the damage they did to the safe, that would take a tremendous amount of time to cut through all that steel with a saw," Kleinvehn said.

For their efforts, the thieves got away with dozens of pieces of expensive jewelry. The stolen pieces included a three-carat diamond engagement ring worth about $35,000, an 18-carat white gold and diamond necklace worth about $28,000, and much more.

South Barrington police have been working diligently on the case, but so far have made no arrests.

"We're just hoping somebody may have seen something that night and didn't think of reporting it, but may be they're aware," Kleinvehn said.

The owner is offering a $25,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the suspects. An additional $50,000 will be offered if the merchandise is recovered.