Great wig heist: 'hair today gone tomorrow' in Houston raid

Instead they went straight for what was most valuable: human hair. By the time the bandits at the My Trendy Place salon in Houston were finished, they had stolen $150,000 (90,000) worth of the shop's most prized type, used for silky extensions.

The break-in was part of a recent trend of thefts, some involving violence, of a seemingly plentiful material. During the past two months alone, robbers have killed a beauty shop supplier in Michigan and carried out heists nationwide in which they have made off with tens of thousands of pounds of hair at a time.

"I heard about it from a couple of different supply companies and customers who said: 'Guard your inventory. There's a rash of this going on,' " said Lisa Amosu, the owner of My Trendy Place. "Whoever did it knew exactly what they wanted. They didn't even bother with the synthetic hair."

Once stolen, the hair is typically sold on the street or on the internet, including eBay, shop owners and the police say.

The most expensive hair type - and the one in highest demand by thieves and paying customers alike - is remy hair, which unlike most other varieties is sold with its outermost cuticle layer intact. This allows it to look more natural and to last longer without tangling. Remy hair from Indian women is the most popular.

But remy hair extensions can cost as much as $200 per package and the average person requires at least two packages. Hundreds of pounds are spent at hair salons to have the extensions attached, often by sewing.

In addition to the $150,000 Houston robbery this month, thieves have recently taken $10,000 in hair from a San Diego shop; $85,000 from a business in Missouri City, Texas; $10,000 from a shop in Dearborn, Michigan; and $60,000 from a business in San Leandro, California.

One indication of how quickly the focus of some thieves has shifted to high-end hair is the experience of the Beauty One hair supply shop in Chicago: two years ago, thieves went after the shop's cash, but last month, they bypassed the till altogether and took just the hair, which was valued at $90,000.

Detective Vito Ferro of the Chicago Police Department, who is investigating the 24 April robbery, said some recent hair thefts in the city appeared to be the work of people taking custom orders. "It's like someone says, 'I'm looking for a 1992 Cadillac Eldorado,' and so you go out looking for that car," said Detective Ferro.

Surveillance cameras outside the Beauty One shop showed robbers using a crowbar and sledgehammer to pry open dead bolts and then loading boxes of hair into a van.

In recent weeks, packages of hair that might have sold for $80 or $100 retail have sold for as little as $25 out of car boots in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Houston, the authorities said.

"They're selling it to stylists who work out of their house, they're selling it on the street, they're selling it out of the car," said Amosu. "People who don't want to pay the prices will buy it from the hustle man. It's like the bootleg DVDs and the fake purses. But this is a quality product."

Not long ago, hip-hop songs and black comedians belittled women who wore extensions and weaves. No longer. It is a style that has grown in popularity that transcends race and celebrity. The market for human hair also includes cancer patients.

Prices have risen substantially as the quality of hair and the rarity of the most popular hair has increased. Remy hair from India usually comes from women who have their heads shaved as a sign of having mastered their egos.

Neal Lester, an English professor at Arizona State University who has written on the race and gender politics of hair, said the growing demand for human hair extensions and the high prices had made thefts inevitable.

"It's sort of a sign of the times," Lester said. "Folks are being entrepreneurial, and weaves and hair extensions are expensive, so it's not surprising that people sell hair the way they sell things on Canal Street, like knock-off purses."

But with the increased profits has come violence, the police say. In Dearborn, Michigan, Jay Shin, the owner of Sunrise Beauty Supply, was killed during a holdup on 15 March by gunmen who stole 80 packages of hair extensions worth about $10,000. Two young men have been arrested.

Assaults have been reported even when only a small amount of hair is involved. In West Palm Beach, Florida, a 16-year-old girl sprayed a clerk with pepper spray last year as she made off with extensions. And in Lawton, Oklahoma, the police said a customer who ran out of a shop with extensions tried to escape with the shop owner clinging to the hood of her car.

The threat of theft has prompted salons and beauty supply shops to hire security guards, install bulletproof glass partitions and even require customers to show identification before they are allowed into back rooms to choose their hair.

But surveillance cameras and an expensive alarm system did not prevent thieves from snatching the inventory at Hair Divas Distributors, a beauty shop in San Leandro, California, that was robbed of hair worth $60,000 last month.

Thieves ignored flat-screen televisions, a digital camera and the cash register, said Ann Davis, the owner. "They went for all my longer pieces, my most expensive stuff, " she said.