In the past year, eight homes of Asian business owners have been burglarized, including four since December, Colonie Police said.

Colonie’s not alone. It happened last November in Colorado. Someone knocked. No one was home. The all-clear is given and moments later, a group broke into the home.

Three years ago, the New York Times reported on an intricate multistate burglary ring. The victims were Asian business owners.

“We have identified what we believe to be a group of people that are probably responsible for this, they are not from this area, maybe not even from this country,” said Colonie Police Deputy Chief Robert Winn.

Colonie police have contacted business owners to alert them.

Suspects have recently been impersonating food delivery drivers to see if someone’s home.

“The way that they’re locating their residences may be that they’re following them home from their business, so they’re doing some sort of surveillance on their business to find out where they live,” said Deputy Chief Winn. “They also could be entering their vehicles to get that information from the registration from the glove box.”

The owners might be targeted because the suspects believe there’s cash or that some victims might be reluctant to report the crime.

“First and foremost, I think my main concern is the magnitude of the impact that it has on the families that they’re targeting,” said business owner Jinah Kim. “But because specifically we look a certain way that that’s the reason for being targeted. And just not being able to feel safe in your own home, especially at a time or a place where maybe you don’t feel safe other places and that home is that one place of refuge that you can feel safe in.”

Jinah Kim is the owner of Sunhee’s Kitchen in Troy.

She has not been victimized, but she is aware of the disturbing crime trend.

“We’re not afraid and we have very strong support systems and networks that we can tap into,” she said. “And so my hope is that collaboration will continue, but that we will be more vocal about what’s going on.”