In a carefully planned overnight heist, thieves cut through a safe and stole more than $1.3 million worth of jewelry from a store outside Chicago, the store owner said.
The burglars worked for nearly five hours during the night of May 9-10, 2025, disabling Internet service to the entire office complex where Rick Kleinvehn Diamond Brokers in South Barrington, Illinois, is located before breaking into the store, according to store owner Rick Kleinvehn.
South Barrington is about 45 minutes outside Chicago.
“They used a wet saw, and the interior where the safe was became all slushy, muddy, just kind of a goo on the floor from them cutting for hours and hours through that steel,” Kleinvehn told ABC News. “They had buckets, and they were filling buckets and pouring it on the hot metal.”
My first thought: if you’re going to spend half the night sawing into a safe, why not rob a bank instead? Cash would be easier to launder than jewels. My second thought: How much cash do banks even keep on hand these days, with cashless payments becoming more and more common?
That was a relatively cheap, shitty little safe. Sawing through it took a relatively short time. A safe 3x thicker, with higher build quality, and better security would have required far more than one night to rob and far longer to plan.
Looks like they came well equipped. Is that a sawsall? Or torch? It doesn’t look burnt. So my guess is some kind of diamond blade? But those things are crazy slow on metal. Maybe a combination of a grinder and a sawsall?
Oh…a wet saw. Makes sense… Criminals carrying 3 jugs of smart water run into the store… Excuse me, this is a robbery, do you have an electrical chord, we forgot ours…
Nah, our safe opening guy was busy this weekend.
Well, yeah its dangerous and all but its a living!
1.3 million in jewelry? So like 20,000 dollars resale?
Came to say the same. Unless you’ve got a good fence, you’re losing a ton of value. Guess it’s decent meth money.
This is why I can’t do crime. There are to many folks willing to do it for way less. I was just thinking that at most they get half value and then its split between however many. No thank you.
They’ll get like 10x that if they know someone who won’t melt it down for the materials. Resale on jewelry is uniquely awful
I really doubt they will get over value on hot jewels.
I don’t know how much stolen property usually goes for, but I guessed less than half of resale, which is usually like a fourth of original price. 12, 4, 2. Could be less. I genuinely have no frame of reference.
It would have taken longer to steal if they kept the jewels in individual boxes under beds or maybe individual cubbyholes along the wall. Like the criminals would need a ladder.
Good for them.
Nobody got hurt. Money and jewelry can be replaced.
Moreover: I am somehow just not able to commiserate to the jewelry sellers/manufacturers.
I can empathize with having my stuff taken, but if you had $1.3 million in jewels, I’m going to bet you’re still better off than almost everyone I know even after the theft. This is a minor inconvenience, and that’s before we even begin to discuss the ethical implications of the jewelry trade.
The burglars worked for nearly five hours during the night of May 9-10, 2025
But today is the 7th.
I’m confused.It’s JUNE now!!??
disabling Internet service to the entire office complex Crappy alarm monitoring service to not have that checked out, unless they told the manager/owner and they dismissed it. Doesn’t say.
Definitely should have been an alarm call. Back when I had alarm access at an old job, one camera had power issues, which prompted a call from the alarm company at 3 am. For about a week straight until it got fixed.
Anyone else got the sudden itch to play payday 2?
If you look at the pic closely, you can see the subtle breach of the safe wall and door. Look at the irregularities at the corner of the safe.
$1.3M in what looks like a $1k “safe”.
The usual rule is 10%, jewellers can’t get insurance if they don’t spend at least 10% of the value on security. Though this safe resisted power tools for 5h. That’s not bad. If the alarm system has been battery backed up and connected over the cell phone network the thieves wouldn’t have been successful
Yeah, they very obviously did not pay 130k for the box alone, and I’d guess it’s not insurable for the value it held. It also doesn’t seem to be in an armored room or vault, and their security system didn’t even go off. Not clear where that budget went, unless the owner is also paying themselves as a PT security guard, lol.
The walls of the safe are quite thin and it could have been opened in a few minutes had they used the right tools in the right places. Even “proper” safes insurable for this amount of value, are only rated to resist tools for 30-60 minutes.
Seriously, even $20k safes are MUCH beefier than whatever this is/was, and might actually justify 5 hrs.
looks like a pretty cheap safe.
It took 5 hours to break enough to get the loot out. That’s pretty good. The secure stuff in my government office is only rated for 3hrs against power tools
kept in a “Not”
So now just go donate half to the ultra corrupt Cheeto and get you a pardon. That’s how the “law” is working now, right?
Im no safe-cracker, but I feel like it might have been possible to open this one with fewer, more strategically placed cuts?
Like, wherever the latch(es) is/are?
They cut through a wall to reach the safe, sounds like some inside knowledge anyway.
It’s nice of them to appraise the value of their haul for them!
Assuming this isn’t insurance fraud, more than likely it’ll all be melted down for the precious metal content. Diamonds famously have no resale value, and gems in general are too easily tracked if there’s any lab grown used in any of the pieces.
