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.”
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!