Crime Watch

bY JERRY DANZIG

MatchtakerA small safe held a big payoff for a burglar recently. Shortly before 4 a.m. on Aug. 24, a man removed a side window at the Match 65 Brasserie shop at 29 East 65th St. and climbed in. He took a shoe-box safe containing $33,000 in cash and exited the location. Anyone with information is asked to call the Detective Bureau Manhattan North at 212-694-1093.

Fried for FraudPolice arrested a young man who tried to commit a fraud. At 5:42 p.m. on Aug. 24, an 18-year-old man tried to open an account in Bloomingdale’s to buy 10 pairs of sunglasses for nearly at $2,200 at the Sunglass Hut shop. Loss prevention personnel at the store determined that his identification was fraudulent and contacted police, who arrested the young man and charged him with grand larceny.

Givenchy-and-TakeAnother teenager was arrested for shoplifting at another premium department store. At 2 p.m. on Aug. 20, an 18-year-old man from the Bronx entered the Barneys New York store at 660 Madison Ave. and was seen by a store employee taking a T-shirt off a rack and hiding it in a shopping bag he was carrying. He did the same with another T-shirt and then left the store, bypassing the registers. Store personnel stopped him on 60th Street, where he was arrested for grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. The two T-shirts from Givenchy were tagged at an eye-opening $555 and $685 respectively.

Pilfering PairTwo store employees who were stealing in the same manner were arrested the same afternoon. At 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 20, an 18-year-old woman working at the Bed Bath & Beyond store at 410 East 61st St. was seen pocketing cash from the register. In the same store, another employee, a 17-year-old woman, was also seen pocketing money from the register. The total amount the two young women stole came to $600, and both were arrested Aug. 25 on charges of petty larceny.

TargetedAt 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, August 21, a 44-year-old male Upper East Side resident received a phone call from someone claiming to represent the IRS, demanding immediate payment of back taxes. The victim wired $18,000 to the bad guys and also read redemption numbers to them of two Target gift cards, each valued at $2,000.