Police: Older Burglar With Expensive Taste Ransacks Upper East Side Apartments

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A burglar with expensive taste hit a luxury apartment building on the Upper East Side, police said Wednesday.

The suspect allegedly swiped tens of thousands of dollars in jewelry, but not before being caught on camera.

As CBS2's Jessica Schneider reported, the suspect is an older man with a baseball hat. He can be seen on surveillance video rummaging through the drawers in a bedroom inside an apartment building on East 86th Street and York Avenue.

Police said he hit three units during the day on Saturday, and got away with several pieces of jewelry belonging to a woman who asked not to be identified.

"A lot of precious things, a lot, because I had taken them out of the safe deposit box," she said.

The woman's neighbor caught the burglar on his motion-activated surveillance camera. She was astounded by the way he casually moved around the apartment and seemed to know exactly what he was looking for.

"He looks like a normal papa. The young people said, 'Oh, he's so old to be a burglar,'" she said.

Tenants were told that the burglar broke in around 4 p.m. and slipped by the doorman completely undetected.

"He picked a busy time when the doorman was busy and he looks like other people who live in the building, with the cap on, and he just walked in," the woman said.

"Makes you a little anxious because I've been here 15 years and never ever any kind of incident, nothing," Carmen Gutierrez said.

Police are looking for leads on who the man is. Tenants believe he was able to pick the locks of doors that weren't deadbolted, and knew people weren't home when he saw newspapers outside their doors.

"Fourth of July, he's obviously looking for people who are away," the woman said.

Police are hoping that someone will recognize the stealth burglar.