Two people were arrested after a frontenac luxury boutique theft at YINOVE LUXE in Frontenac that police said involved $35,301 in stolen merchandise. The break-in happened around 2:20 a.m. Tuesday, and the case moved quickly from the store alarm to arrests after a resale attempt tied the suspects to the stolen bag.
Shuwen Zou, the owner of YINOVE LUXE, said he received an alert from the store’s alarm system early Tuesday morning and watched the burglary on camera. “I look at the phone, from the camera, I see two people break in from the front door and use a bag and took a bunch of bags from there and some bags from that wall, and ran out like within 20 seconds,” he said.
YINOVE LUXE theft
Frontenac Police said the stolen merchandise included designer handbags and a hat, and the criminal complaint placed the total value at $35,301. Zou said 12 items were stolen. He also described the items taken as “a few Goyard bags from this side and a Celine bag and some Chanel bags.”
The store owner said the aftermath meant more than replacing stock. “The situation is definitely frustrating because we need to go through insurance claim, and rebuild the store, do repair, and also recover our stocks,” he said.
West resale attempts
Police linked the theft to resale efforts the same day. Jerrail West went to one resale shop and tried to sell a Louis Vuitton men’s crossbody bag valued at $1,885. The owner refused to buy it because he recognized West from previous suspicious sales and believed the bag was stolen.
West and Lamont Walker later went to Clothes Mentor to try to sell the bag again. Hannah Benz, the general manager at Clothes Mentor St. Louis, said repeated visits made her suspicious. “Whenever he came back, I knew instantly that it was stolen from somewhere else, and I wanted to make sure it got back to its rightful home because we just never want to partake in the buying of stolen goods or profiting off anyone else’s loss,” she said.
Clothes Mentor arrest
Benz said she alerted police after the attempted resale at Clothes Mentor. The criminal complaint said she took possession of the bag to verify its authenticity, then called police after Walker left the store with the recovered item. Walker and West returned the next day at their appointed time, and police arrested both men.
Benz said frequent visits from people trying to resell items helped her identify one of the suspects. “The community that we’ve built is amazing. Huge shout-out to the girls over at the Vault in Brentwood, Reset in Maplewood. Such amazing help and information they were able to give me,” she said.
For shoppers and store owners in the area, the case now sits on the paper trail police built from the burglary, the camera footage, and the attempted resale. The arrests came after a store alarm, a 20-second break-in, and a bag that turned up at multiple resale counters in St. Louis County.
