Round Rock police investigating several possibly related burglaries

ROUND ROCK, Texas - Round Rock police are looking into several burglaries that could be related. The burglars were caught on several surveillance cameras where you can actually hear their plans to get away.

FOX 7 Austin spoke to the owners at Fire Bowl Cafe and Maggie Moo's Ice Cream in Round Rock and the owner of Scoop and Score Ice Cream in Cedar Park who all supplied video from their surveillance cameras.

Although police say they don't have suspect descriptions, these videos have several things in common.

Armando and Aleane Valim bought Maggie Moo's Ice Cream in December 2019. “We came from Brazil, worked really hard, came to America and opened our first business to live the American dream," Armando Valim said. "To be your own boss, conquer your own destiny.”

They weren't expecting this. At 4 a.m. Tuesday morning Valim’s security cameras captured two burglars breaking into the store they've barely owned for three months and taking hundreds of dollars, and a heart-shaped ice-cream cake.

“They already had it planned because one guy went to the back for the safe and the other guy went to the front for the lockbox,” Valim said.

Valim says they smashed glass from their side window, crawled inside, and because it’s cornered where the trash can is, they believe this made it easier for them to break in.

They weren’t the only ones targeted. Two doors down, Fire Bowl Café was broken into, a few minutes before Maggie Moo’s.

Store owner Gigi Lee says, “I feel very violated I feel very scared for the staff we have here the whole neighborhood because we have been in business for so many years and we know all of our neighbors.”

The thieves took thousands of dollars, and damaged equipment.

“They broke our front door, broke our register, broke into our office, broke the safe,” Lee said.

Round Rock police say officers responded to the La Frontera shopping area where Maggie Moo’s and three other businesses had broken exterior glass, and money missing from inside. As they continue to investigate, police mentioned there are similarities in the burglars' tactics and types of businesses they hit.

However, it doesn't stop in Round Rock. Ten miles away, in Cedar Park, the owner of Scoop and Score Ice Cream and Coffee Parlor says more than $2,000 was taken from his store Tuesday morning, around 5:30 a.m. That would have been after the break-ins at La Frontera shopping area. 

In all three videos, you can see a sledgehammer and crowbar. In the Scoop and Score video, you can hear the burglars instructing someone over the phone who isn’t pictured to come around to the back.

Lee says, “I want to make sure we all work together as business owners and neighbors.”

Valim adds, “it's very hard, Round Rock is probably not as safe as we expected.”

Some of these businesses have been posting on their Facebook pages pictures of the damage they're trying to clean up.

If you know anything about these burglaries, call the Round Rock or Cedar Park police departments.