Chicago diamond heist 'straight out of Ocean's Eleven'

CHICAGO -- It was a jewelry heist right out of the movies -- a professional job that netted thieves around $500,000 in precious gems at a Chicago jewelers.

The crooks broke into Steve Quick Jewelers in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Tuesday night by cutting through a common wall in the sushi restaurant next door straight into the back corner of the jeweler's office, right behind the safe -- the only part of the store not covered by an elaborate security system of cameras and motion detectors.

They then used a saw to cut through the safe, reach in and grab the gems.

"Definitely straight out of Ocean's Eleven," owner Melissa Quick said. "They figured it out, they knew exactly how to get it, exactly how to do it."

Police told the owners it had to have been someone who had been in the backroom before and knew the security soft spot.

"That person is either the luckiest criminal on the planet that happened to go in that space where the motion detector wouldn't pick him up -- and it's only not there because it's my desk area -- or somehow they had some information," owner Steve Quick said.

The most intriguing item left behind by the burglars who escaped unseen was an ice bucket full of beer.

"They had been using the beer to cool the saw blade. The metal got hot enough so that it could burn whatever's inside the safe, so they were pouring beer on the saw blade to keep it cool," said Steve Quick.

On Thursday, employees took inventory of what was left behind, and tried to get the store ready to reopen.

Nothing belonging to customers was taken because those items were in a different safe. The burglars only managed to take items stored on the two bottom shelves of the safe, and they were quite picky.

"The valuable gems are gone, the gems that really weren't worth that much or weren't that important are still back there," Steve Quick said.