Two years after Woodfield jewelry heist, police say leads have dried up

Schaumburg police have closed their investigation into a daring overnight burglary that netted more than $1 million in merchandise from a Woodfield Mall jewelry store nearly two years ago.

The move comes after detectives found few new leads to pursue in the weeks after the Aug. 1, 2024 heist.

Deputy Police Chief Joe Dugan said the department investigated the break-in to the fullest extent possible for more than a year.

“Detectives followed up on numerous leads and tips that came in, but none led to anything concrete,” Dugan said Wednesday. “The detective was also in contact with other jurisdictions throughout the country that had incidents similar in nature in order to exchange information in case any of them were able to develop any additional leads (or) suspects or make an arrest. We never received a final inventory of the actual loss from the victim.”

A security camera inside Marquise Jewelers was covered when burglars entered the store after hours by breaking through the wall from a vacant space next door. Investigators later determined the thieves broke into the mall through the back door of a Sbarro restaurant, then went through a wall there to access the vacant unit next to the jewelry store.

It was a construction worker who discovered the break-in when he entered the vacant unit next door at 9:30 a.m. Aug. 2, 2024, and found the damaged drywall.

Investigators believe six people were involved in the burglary, based on a combination of surveillance footage from elsewhere and accounts from witnesses in the vicinity at the time, Schaumburg police Cmdr. Christy Lindhurst said in 2024.

Marquise Jewelers co-owner Asma Anwar told the Daily Herald at the time that the combination of property loss and damage was likely to be at least $1.5 million.

Shazad Malik, Anwar’s husband and the store’s co-owner, declined to comment Wednesday.

The store remained closed for a few months after the break-in, but reopened by the holidays in 2024. It still operates in the mall.

Anwar and Malik had co-owned Marquise Jewelers for 13 years at the time of the burglary. The couple met working together at a jewelry kiosk at Woodfield before buying and renaming it, Anwar said.

They gradually expanded to three more mall kiosks, before leasing the storefront in 2023. Anwar said the highly visible and regularly patrolled kiosks never saw more than minor thefts over the years.

In the immediate aftermath of the burglary, the owners asked customers to visit their kiosks to help their business recover.

“We’re small business owners,” Anwar said two years ago. “We had to work up to this for years.”