Aurora police are investigating an early Tuesday morning burglary in which a vehicle was used to ram through the front window of a high-end department store in the city.

The burglars ended up making off with about $40,000 in purses and luggage and causing $20,000 damage to the store.

The burglary occurred at about 4:30 a.m. Tuesday at Salvatore Ferragamo in the Chicago Premium Outlets Mall in the 1600 block of Premium Outlets Boulevard.

As Aurora police were responding to an alarm at the store, they saw a Dodge Grand Caravan with heavy front end damage parked on Premium Outlets Boulevard. The vehicle’s doors were open and several purses were laying inside and outside the Caravan.

When additional officers went to the Ferragamo store, they found the exterior entrance smashed in with tire prints leading into the business.

Pictures from security cameras show at least four offenders loading store merchandise into the vehicle after it smashes through the front window. Upon further investigation, it was learned that a mall security guard who was also responding to the alarm spotted the Caravan where police found it, but he apparently was not at a vantage point where he could see the damage to the vehicle so he continued onto the store.

He said that at the time he spotted it, there was a dark-colored sedan parked next to the Caravan with at least two people moving about around the vehicles. Police said that the burglars were apparantly able to back the Caravan out of the store, transfer the merchandise to the other vehicle, and flee before police arrived.

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