Crime & Safety

UPDATE: Duo Charged With Committing 40 Area Burglaries

The men were each charged with nine counts of burglary following a rash of burglaries of Asian restaurants, groceries.

Updated Sep. 20 at 12:42 p.m.

Police have charged two men they say admitted committing approximately 40 commercial burglaries in , Niles Des Plaines, Skokie, Northbrook, Prospect Heights, Mount Prospect, Buffalo Grove, Lincolnwood, Wheeling, unincorporated Cook County and Chicago.

Seong Lee, 43, of 8504 N. Waukegan Road, Morton Grove, and Nelson Cotto, of 2721 N. Merrimac, Chicago, were each charged with nine counts of burglary. The burglaries took place over approximately a two-month period.

Police had a first interaction with the two men on Sept. 6, when a Mount Prospect officer observed them go behind a strip mall at Algonquin and Busse Roads, saying they needed to urinate.
During the stop for public urination, the officer described noticing pry bars, a mask and gloves in their vehicle and seized the items. No charges were made at that time.

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However, several police departments expressed interest in the two, saying they had cases of burglaries at Asian food stores, and the men’s car matched the description of a vehicle leaving a burglary at an Asian restaurant.

A multi-jurisdictional task force of investigators conducted surveillance on the two, and on Saturday morning they said they witnessed the pair throw a large rock through the glass door of a food store at Potter and Ballard Roads, Des Plaines, enter and remove about $180 from the cash register. The surveillance team took them into custody immediately.

Prior to that, the surveillance team said they observed Lee and Cotto throwing a large rock through a large glass window at R&W Manufacturing, located at Oak Park and Jarvis avenues, Niles, but they didn't enter to the building.

Once the two suspects were in custody, numerous area police departments interviewed them and gained statements from them allegedly admitting to the approximately 40 burglaries.
The two suspects had a bond hearing Monday at the Skokie branch of the Cook County courts.

Information is provided by the . Suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in court.

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