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NEW VIDEO: Help catch smash-and-grab burglar

Posted at 11:27 PM, Dec 17, 2015
and last updated 2015-12-18 01:28:30-05

Denver area businesses are getting hit by what could be a serial smash-and-grab burglar.

Surveillance video from multiple businesses show a burglar with the same tactic and possibly the same look.

Last weekend, Sweet Ginger and Le Merise restaurants in Cherry Creek North, were both robbed after their door windows were smashed.

Surveillance footage provided to Denver7 from Le Merise showed a man in a puffy coat go straight for the cash register. He fumbled with it as he tossed it to the ground to get it to open. While he shoved the cash in his pocket, he looked up and is caught on camera.

He's wearing a hooded sweatshirt and has a mask on the lower half of his face. His eyes glow in the video.

He appears to be wearing the same outfit as that of a burglar who was caught on camera at a salon in the Golden Triangle section of Denver off of Speer Boulevard. That burglary was two weekends ago. The video shows a man throw a rock through the front door glass and within 10 seconds is grabbing a money box in a cabinet.

In this burglary, the man isn't wearing a mask and looks straight up at the camera.

"He was either pulling up a collar or something like that, but he never really seemed to notice the cameras at all," said the salon's owner Lisa Ouellette. "I did go around the day after and tried to give everybody a picture of what we had. That's when I heard about the other smash-and-grabs."

Two nights earlier, just a few blocks away at 12th Avenue and Broadway, three restaurants were hit. BurgerFi, Quiznos Grill and NuHu -- all were broken into.

At NuHu, a worker said the front door glass was smashed, but there was no money for the burglar to take. At BurgerFi, an employee who had seen surveillance video of their burglary said that the man looked just like the one caught on camera at Le Merise.

Earlier this month, someone broke the glass and burglarized the Jamba Juice and Taja Indian restaurant at Sixth Avenue and Broadway. The next night, Angelo's CDs and More was hit on south Broadway.

After our story on Wednesday night about the Cherry Creek North smash-and-grabs, which also showed video from Angelo's, Ouellette came forward with her video.

"That's when we realized that we might be talking about the same person even though we're not in the exact area that everything else happened," said Ouellette. "I kind of feel like he's a career criminal, just knowing that he came in and out in less than two minutes."

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