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.”
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.