Police are investigating a connection between several warehouse burglaries in the Cranbury area within the past year.
By: leon Tovey
MONROE Police are investigating whether a burglary at a warehouse on Englehard Road on Oct. 9 might be the work of the same bandits who robbed two warehouses in Cranbury earlier this year.
At least two thieves stole a Penske rental truck from the Scholastic Books warehouse on Englehard Road on the night of Oct. 9 and drove it about ¼-mile to another warehouse on Englehard Road that houses Vertis Digital and LA Packaging, according to Detective Lisa Robinson of the Monroe Police Department.
Detective Robinson said the burglars entered the Vertis section of the warehouse at 8:40 p.m. by knocking a panel out of a bay door and then knocked a 7-foot-by-7-foot hole in the brick wall separating Vertis from LA Packaging, a cosmetics and perfume packaging business, possibly with sledgehammers.
On Thursday, Detective Robinson said it was still unknown whether the burglars had stolen anything from the warehouse.
Messages from The Cranbury Press left with the management of Vertis Digital and LA Packaging were not returned by the Press’s Thursday afternoon deadline.
The circumstances of the break-in raised flags with other police departments around the state including Cranbury, Detective Robinson said.
Cranbury Police Chief Jay Hansen said his department is still investigating two similar incidents that took place in Cranbury. Chief Hansen said burglars in April broke into the LVHM warehouse on Prospect Plains Road and stole an amount of perfume valued "in the six-figure range."
In August burglars stole an as-yet-undetermined amount of perfume from the CEI warehouse on South River Road, the chief said.
Chief Hansen said that in each case, the thieves pried open a door to get into the warehouse, and that no holes were made in the walls. But because all three burglaries occurred at cosmetics warehouses, he said it was possible they were connected.
Detective Robinson said she also is investigating why the burglar alarm at LA Packaging did not go off until 3:27 p.m. Oct 10, almost an entire day after the burglary.