The smash-and-grab may be popular among some crooks, but others prefer a more subtle style of thieving.
An example comes from a Lee County Sheriff’s Office incident report taken this past Saturday at the Best Buy at the Coconut Point mall in Estero.
Thieves made off with an estimated $50,000 in laptop computers after they used ladders and ropes to climb to the roof of the store and cut their way inside, according to the report.
The store’s general manager discovered the break-in on Saturday morning when he noticed a ceiling light fixture on the floor near the employee break room, the report said. Looking up, the manager saw two holes, one in the ceiling directly above and another in the roof above the ceiling. When he went into the break room, he discovered another ceiling hole, this one with a ladder extending to the floor.