Asma Anwar and Shazad Malik are still searching for answers about last week’s overnight burglary of more than $1 million of merchandise from their Woodfield Mall jewelry store, as well as the future of the 13-year-old business they built together.
Anwar said calculation of the total loss at Marquise Jewelers is still in progress, but the monetary impact of the theft and damage together won’t be less than $1.5 million.
Schaumburg police said the overnight crime Aug. 1 involved at least six people and was perpetrated by cutting through drywall in another occupied unit, then through a vacant unit in between, which allowed entry into the jewelry store itself.
A construction worker entering the vacant unit at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 2, saw and reported the damaged drywall.
A surveillance camera in the jewelry store had been covered to avoid detection, but police are continuing to review surveillance footage and other evidence from multiple sources, authorities said.
Woodfield Mall management declined to comment, directing all inquiries regarding the burglary to Schaumburg police.
Notices in the windows of Marquise Jewelers’ main location at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg report its lingering shutdown after an overnight break-in last week from an adjacent vacant unit.
Eric Peterson/epeterson@dailyherald.com
The husband-and-wife owners of the store met working together at a jewelry kiosk at Woodfield before buying and renaming it 13 years ago. They gradually expanded to three more scattered throughout the mall, and last year began leasing a storefront as a main location where they were ultimately robbed of all its merchandise.
Highly visible and patrolled by mall security day and night, the kiosks have never sustained more than minor losses to theft over the years, Anwar said. Now those very kiosks that helped the couple grow their business are being seen as the key to its survival.
“We’re small business owners. We had to work up to this for years,” she said. “We’re just asking our customers to support us at our kiosks. We have the kiosks and we’re trying to rebuild there.”
Anwar said she and her husband remain in need of more information to determine the future of their year-old storefront. Answers about security are high among their concerns, she added, and further meetings with Woodfield Mall management are scheduled.
Citing the ongoing investigation, police could not say if any footage from the jewelry store camera was useful before it was covered or how they determined six suspects are involved.