Video Shows Burglars Stealing A Fortune In Hair Extensions
Updated 4/25/2011 at 4:00 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Police are investigating a hair-raising heist on the city's Near West Side just west of downtown over the weekend -- a crime caught on surveillance video.
Workers from the Maxwell Street market were just setting up for the day near Beauty One, 616 W. Roosevelt Rd., at 6:40 a.m. when police responded to the beauty supply store because an alarm had gone off, according to a Central District police sergeant.
It was a well-planned heist on the quietest day of the year, Easter Sunday, and burglars who knew exactly what they were looking for: top-quality human hair and hair products collectively worth $80,000.
The burglars rolled up in a plain white van and boldly went to work, battering away at the back door, according to surveillance video shared with CBS 2. They broke it open, wheeled in big, empty carts, and five minutes later wheeled them back out, filled with the store's more expensive brands of human hair extensions and hair-preparation chemicals.
Beat cops arrived soon after the break-in. Store owner Jay Han says the thieves were no amateurs and knew exactly what they were looking for.
"They can take it out on the street and sell it for a lower price," store clerk Lyndsay Jones told CBS 2's Derrick Blakley. "They can sell it out of their car, out of their home and make a pretty good profit out of it."
Han says he was burglarized two years ago. But that time, the thieves took only cash.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
