A Coral Springs cell phone store was forced to shut its doors Monday after burglars broke in through holes they made in a wall from the place next door, police said.
Police said burglars broke into a vacant office just off of University Drive and Sample Road, then dug holes in the wall and crawled through them to get to Horizon Wireless at 7861 Sample Road.
“They were so low on the floor they were crawling so the motion sensors didn’t pick them up, and they didn’t break in through the doors, so the alarm didn’t go off,” store owner Sammy Balkis said.
Once the burglars got through the wall they stole over $15,000 worth of cell phones, cash, and a gun, he said.
Valentina Ramirez, the wife of the store’s co-owner, said she noticed something was wrong as soon as she parked her car.
She said she realized the glass door was broken and checked it out. From there, she said, she saw footprints leading to the back.
She said the burglars realized they couldn’t get through one wall because of wires and pipes so they moved on. They also damaged a wall in a second room, she said.
“And then they came over here (to a third room), where it was pretty easy because there was a piece of wall that was missing already, and went through in there,” she said.
“They did some damage, serious damage, they took everything,” Balkis said.
He said the burglars disabled the surveillance video inside the store but police were still able to see the two men from cameras outside the building.
Read about a Broward burglar authorities said went on a shopping spree here.
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Coral Springs Police crime scene investigators dusted for prints and discovered that the suspects tried to wipe away all of their prints.
“I would call him the Windex robber,” Ramirez said. Asked why, she responded, “Because he came back in his tracks and he covered all his work with Windex.”
As for Balkis, he said he just wants to get back to business.
