By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
FINANCIAL DISTRICT — A daring duo of sledge hammer-wielding burglars are smashing down walls and clambering through holes to raid downtown shops and restaurants, police said.
In the past six weeks, the thieves — believed to be two men — have hit eight establishments in a crime spree that has left business owners in the neighborhood on high alert.
In one break-in, the pair entered a residential building then cut a hole in the wall to get into a neighboring restaurant.
"They're breaking through walls and stealing laptops and any money that's around," said Capt. Edward Winski, commanding officer of lower Manhattan's 1st Precinct.
In one raid, the intruders smashed their way into Ancora Ristorante, on Stone Street, then hot-wired an elevator and rode it down into the eatery's plush basement dining room.
The thieves used hammers to destroy the register, pulling out $2,000 in cash, police said. They finished by trashing the back office and also made off with 50 bottles of wine worth a total of $3,000, police said.
"I was surprised," said Tony Fantastico, co-owner of the restaurant which was hit in the early hours of May 19. "This should be the safest place in the country. But always, people find a way."
Police have collected several surveillance videos, along with a sledgehammer, a crowbar and five screwdrivers that the burglars left behind, Winski said. But so far, the NYPD hasn't cracked the case.
Investigators say the thieves appear to have very detailed knowledge of each of the buildings they have struck, suggesting they might be deliverymen or people who have spent a lot of time casing the buildings.
Police declined to release surveillance footage, but several of the incident reports refer to the perpetrators as two men.
On the same night that the thieves hit Ancora Ristorante, they also allegedly broke into Crepes Du Nord on South William Street, just a couple of blocks away.
The burglars smashed the glass door and fled with $275 from the register, police said.
"It's a setback for us, to go through the insurance, the meeting with the cops," said Victor Andrade, the manager at Crepes du Nord, where the glass door was still covered in pieces of wood a week later. "It's a little demoralizing."
One of the strangest in the series of break-ins occurred at Ho Yip, a fast-food Chinese restaurant on Liberty Street.
While the restaurant was closed May 23, a burglar pried open a metal lockbox outside the building, which contained a key that the United States Postal Service uses to deliver mail, police said.
The intruder then made his way up the stairs of the residential portion of the building and chopped through sheetrock to get into the restaurant's second floor, police said.
The burglar then allegedly grabbed $1,710 in coins from the cash registers and the office's cash box, including 4,000 quarters, 4,000 dimes and more.
Other recent break-ins include the Lenny's sandwich shop on John Street, where a $1,200 laptop was stolen on May 8 or 9 and The Full Shilling on Pearl Street, where the burglars made off with $6,246 worth of liquor in the early morning of May 12, police said.
