LOWER EAST SIDE — Police are looking for a suspect in a spate of burglaries that have hit five Lower East Side apartments within a block of each other between Dec. 23 and Jan. 3.
Police want to question a 22-year-old Bushwick man about the pattern, which has resulted in thousands of dollars worth of stolen property.
A thief struck two apartments in neighboring buildings on Clinton Street between Rivington and Stanton streets sometime between Dec. 23 and Jan. 2, according to authorities.
In one incident, the 23-year-old victim went on vacation with his roommates on Dec. 23 and returned Jan. 2 to find his apartment door had been chained shut from the inside, according to a police report.
Once he managed to break inside, he noticed the door to his room was flung open and that a safe containing $300 cash, a checkbook, a credit card, and three pricey watches — a Tag Heur watch, a Burberry watch, and a Nixon watch, altogether worth around $2,275 — had been stolen. The thief had also snatched a $350 Xbox from the living room and a small wooden box worth $150, according to the police report.
The resident of a neighboring building told police he went to dinner on Dec. 27 around 5:15 p.m. and returned at 8:30 p.m. to find the bedroom to his window was open and his $400 Cannondale bike had been taken, police said.
(Via NYPD)
Three Rivington Street apartments sitting between Suffolk and Clinton streets were also burglarized between Dec. 30 and Jan. 3, police said. Two of the burglaries occurred in the same building.
A man who left his window unlocked while on vacation Dec. 30 through Jan. 1 was unable to open the door to his apartment when he returned at around 4 p.m. because the dead bolt had been locked, police said.
After calling a locksmith and entering the apartment, he noticed his Darmouth class ring, worth $450, had been taken, according to a police report.
In a neighboring building, two victims reported valuables missing on the night of Jan. 3, police said.
A 63-year-old Italian tourist and his family, who were renting the Rivington Street space through Airbnb, told police they left the apartment at 4:30 p.m. and returned at 7:30 p.m. to find a Samsonite backpack containing a passport and a haul of pricey electronics missing, according to authorities. The window to the apartment was unlocked and slightly open, police said.
The backpack had contained a Nikon camera, two camera lenses, an iPad, house keys, and a bank token in addition to one of the family member's Italian passports, according to a police report. The stolen valuables are worth roughly $5,400 altogether, police said.
A 34-year-old woman living in the same apartment building left home around 9:15 a.m. on Jan. 3, and when she returned that evening at 9:00 p.m. her window was open and her MacBook Pro and headphones, worth around $1,350, were stolen, according to authorities.
No arrests had been made as of Friday morning and the investigation is ongoing, police said.
