Illinois Gaming-Machine Burglary: Police Say Suspects Fled at Over 100 MPH Near Lake Villa

The call came in at 2:54 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. A burglary in progress at The Fogcutter, a bar at 36021 Route 45 in unincorporated Lake Villa.

By the time Lake County sheriff’s deputies got there, the crew was gone. So was the cash from the video gaming machines.

The 911 caller had watched them leave in a black Infiniti Q50 with no plates.

That account comes from sheriff’s Chief Christopher Covelli, who gave it to the Lake and McHenry County Scanner for a report published Sept. 17. Covelli said evidence had been recovered and was being processed. He said he didn’t know how much cash was taken. A description of the car went out to law enforcement across the region.

Then they drove into the second lot

Elsewhere in Lake County, a sheriff’s sergeant was watching another bar and lounge with gaming machines, in unincorporated Deerfield.

The Infiniti pulled in.

The sergeant started toward the car, and it took off — well over 100 mph on Milwaukee Avenue, then Lake Cook Road, then onto Interstate 294 heading for Chicago. It was moving fast enough that the sergeant and a Riverwoods police officer lost sight of it.

The report doesn’t say whether a formal pursuit was ever initiated.

What police haven’t said

No arrests. No suspect descriptions. No figure for what came out of The Fogcutter’s machines. The Sept. 17 report carried none of it.

It also left a question hanging: whether this is the same crew that hit the Gas N Wash in Green Oaks on Sept. 9. In that one, the Scanner reported, five masked suspects were inside going at the gaming machines with sledgehammers and crowbars. A clerk was working. A sixth waited outside in a black SUV.

The two are classified differently. Authorities described Lake Villa as a burglary. Green Oaks was reported as an armed robbery, and a witness said the clerk was threatened.

This keeps happening

We’ve covered New Lenox, Peotone and Green Oaks, and the arrests linked to burglaries around Decatur.

The scale isn’t small. More than $2.7 million was stolen from Illinois video gambling establishments in burglaries during 2025, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Jan. 20, with property damage on top of that.

Detectives around the region have been sharing intelligence on the cases as part of a task force, according to the Scanner.

Some of these do reach court. In September 2025, prosecutors alleged three men were behind 16 burglaries across four counties, taking more than $500,000, the Sun-Times reported. Those are allegations. They don’t establish guilt.

If you’re reading this from outside Illinois: these aren’t arcade cabinets. They’re licensed gambling terminals. A business needs the right state gaming authorization to have them, not just a retail licence — and any municipality can ban them outright.