Today's brazen thieves often make passes at $300 glasses

There was an era when a pair of glasses actually could prevent crime.

"You wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?" was the equivalent of carrying a "Get Out of a Pummeling Free" card.

Glasses then were a sign of weak, physical frailty. Today, glasses are a bold fashion statement.

So, if you set your $330 pair of Dolce & Gabbana prescription glasses on the bar next to your drink while you mosey off to the bathroom, don't necessarily expect your metal frames to be there when you come back.

"It's not like there are a bunch of people out there who can't see and need glasses," says Kathy Grannis, manager of media relations for the National Retail Federation.

It's just that with some frames now costing more than a new iPhone, thieves often take chances for $300 glasses.

"Many of these thieves work for a higher power," Grannis says.

In Streamwood, a team of crooks recently hit an eyeglass store and stole three frames worth a total of $315 while one person distracted the staff.

"We definitely have seen an increase in theft across the nation," says Holly S. Ingram, public relations manager for LensCrafters, one of the leading eyeglass stores throughout the suburbs. "For the most part, what we'll see is they'll go for the high-fashion, luxury name brands."

LensCrafters now uses electronic monitoring devices and other theft-prevention tricks. "It's not something I want to go into detail about and alert potential thieves," Ingram says.

Eyeglasses aren't the only unusual targets for today's thieves. Maybe it's the economy, but nothing seems safe from theft these days.

In bucolic Geneva, someone stole the right quarter-panel off a Jeep Liberty parked in a driveway. Apparently the penalties for stealing a car are less harsh if you do it a piece at a time.

Metal items, from gutters on a house to statues in a park, have been swiped in the suburbs.

Recent thefts in Batavia include headphones, a laser yardage device for golfers, a couple of bottles of booze, $48 in auto parts, clothes and an evergreen tree.

Shrubbery was stolen in Maple Park. Extension cords vanished in Antioch. A grill was swiped in Palatine. Cigarette lighters disappeared from a car in Deer Park. A tire was stolen off a truck parked in Elk Grove Village. A pygmy hedgehog was pilfered from a pet shop in St. Charles (and later returned). Someone even broke into a locker near the Dark Knight ride at Six Flags in Gurnee and stole an insulin kit.

None of these crimes are the great train robbery or the big heist. But they add up.

One reason for these thefts might be because of the Internet. A thief selling designer glasses frames on a Web site seems much more proper than some hood hawking wares from the trunk of a car.

The FBI says such "e-fencing" deals in everything from DVDs to baby formula, and clothes to medicines. Organized retail theft accounts for more of a financial loss than burglary, larceny, robbery and auto theft combined.

Retailers lost $34.3 billion through organized theft in 2007, according to one industry report by the University of Florida.

About two-thirds of retailers identified or recovered stolen merchandise (including gift cards) being sold at swap meets, on the Internet and elsewhere, according to the National Retail Federation's 2008 Organized Retail Crime report. A survey of senior loss prevention professionals estimated that 40 percent of the "new in box" merchandise sold through auction sites was obtained fraudulently.

Last year, the National Retail Federation, the FBI and other industry agencies launched a national database to keep track of organized retail theft.

You don't need 20-20 vision to see that thieves can target anyone and any item these days - even glasses.

"It is a problem for all retailers," says LensCrafters' Ingram. "Prices go up for consumers when there is considerable theft."