UPPER KEYS -- First there was the Purple Isle burglar, who has been prowling the lodges of Upper Matecumbe Key since last August. Now there are the landscape burglars.

Since November, thieves have struck five Upper Keys lawn companies and another in Marathon, stealing chain saws, wheelbarrows, leaf blowers and, in one case, guns and a truck.

The burglaries have ranged in size and scope. In an early April burglary at Artistic Lawn in Islamorada, the culprits simply walked into an unlocked trailer and absconded with landscaping tools. In other cases they've stolen more, with more complicated entries.

During a recent burglary at Tavernier Lawn Mower, for example, burglars first tripped the alarm and disabled it. Then they returned hours later, cut a hole through the back door, and stole approximately 60 pieces of equipment valued at $20,000, Monroe County Sheriff's reports and owner Chris Sante say.

The first of the burglaries took place at Plantation Tree and Landscape in Tavernier on Nov. 20. In that case, the burglars ransacked the business and five trucks, making off with more than $20,000 in weed eaters, chain saws, guns and a Ford truck. The truck was later recovered in Miami.

The burglars didn't strike again until hitting Dot Palm in Marathon in late February. But since then they've picked up the pace, hitting four locations between March 8 and April 15.

The Sheriff's Office won't say if it has any leads in the case, though it is asking anyone with information to contact the Crime Stoppers hot line at (800) 346-TIPS. And they're revealing little about what they might know, other than a suspicion that the burglars are operating out of Miami because that is where the Plantation Tree and Landscape truck was recovered.

"Detectives have regularly checked pawn shops and are working with other South Florida law enforcement agencies to keep an eye out for stolen items," Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Becky Herrin said.

Herrin wouldn't say how many burglars there might be.

But Sante, of Tavernier Lawn Mower, said when his shop was burglarized on April 15, surveillance cameras showed two people load up a truck and drive away. He believes another truck was manned by one to two people because the first truck was not loaded with all of the items stolen that night.

"We have an alarm system and we have burglar bars. But there is no place that is burglar proof," Sante said.

Aside from the six lawn service shops that have been hit, burglars also recently struck a construction trailer at a kayak dock project on the south shore of Tavernier Creek.

Brett Ekblom, owner of contracting company Native Construction, said $5,000 worth of construction tools were stolen during the April 4 incident, including chop saws, compressors, circular saws and concrete vibrators.

"We're just not leaving our trailers on the job site anymore," Ekblom said. "We are taking everything back to the site at night, and we're using the best lock we can."

Asked if the Sheriff's Office thought the Native Construction burglary was related to the ones of lawn service shops, Herrin said, "The construction site was construction equipment, not lawn equipment."

rsilk@keysnews.com