Exclusive video shows man burglarizing Manhattan business. It's part of a string of recent crimes in Hell's Kitchen.
NEW YORK -- Video obtained by CBS New York shows a someone burglarizing a business in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. This isn't the only business in the area that's been the victim of a crime recently.
CBS New York has learned at least five small businesses in the neighborhood have had a break-in or been vandalized in the past week.
Video shows man stealing from register at Hell's Kitchen dry cleaning business
Police say New Cleaners on West 49th Street was burglarized early Monday morning.
Surveillance video shows a masked man breaking into the business, and within seconds, he finds the cash drawer and breaks it wide open. Police say he got away with $1,500 in cash.
Store manager Ramon Garcia thinks it was a set-up.
"Someone professional, who wears gloves, and he broke one lock with [a tool]," Garcia said.
Map shows string of crimes under investigation in Hell's Kitchen
Sometime late Friday night or early Saturday morning, someone smashed the glass door of Al Horno Mexican on West 47th, first reported by W42ST.com.
Surveillance video shows a masked man drop some sort of tool on a pile of trash outside the restaurant. He looks around and then returns to bust the glass.
A couple of nights before that, just across Ninth Avenue at HK Best Barber, more video shows someone making very similar moves -- again checking to see if anyone's around before smashing their glass door.
Djibril Zakari at Al Horno believes the same person is responsible for both acts of vandalism.
Also this week, a window was broken at Seguidilla Dominican Bistro on West 51st Street. Employees are thankful it happened after hours when nobody was there.
Totto Ramen across the street was also targeted.
"A person that does that, gonna break the whole glass and gonna break across the street, try to break around the corner, is not in a right mind. Imagine if somebody was to be here, one of us. We would have been in danger," said Cinnamon D., at Seguidilla.
Thankfully, nobody was hurt in any of these incidents.
Retail theft and larceny are the most common crimes reported in Hell's Kitchen, and NYPD data shows it's on the rise, making it more expensive for small businesses to stay in business.
