To the MODS......I believe this thread has shifted from the specific incident originally posted.
For the record, I have been to Bonaire twice, never had anything happen to my stuff, took the necessary precautions, had great dives, WILL try to make this an annual trip.
First of all, I laugh when I read everybody's responses to "Bonaire + Crime". I grew up in a small town, I live in a l;arger town, I work is a very large city. Guess what one major common denominator is??? CRIME!! There is crime everywhere. Anybody that says there is not is full of some smelly brown stuff. Crime exists everywhere.
..........The annoyance is not so much the crime as the lack of interest in it by local authorities..............
This, I can agree with. Crime happens and will continue to. Unfortunately the economic situation is not necessarily the greatest (although it may be better than the USA soon) on the island therefore there is a real sense of the HAVE's (tourists) and the HAVE NOT's (locals). I have been to many smaller places with this division and crime was always elevated....but not always publicized. On such a small island, for so many petty criminals to go uncaughtmeans that there is lack of effort sometimes (and I do not say always). Persuading me to think otherwise will never happen. 15,000 people.....you know (or can figure out) "hoo dun it". I would respect the island even more if you read more about the criminals getting caught and prosecuted but then, this is just me.
.........No smoke without fire.................
The problem with this logic??? Just because you do not see the smoke, does not mean the fire is not burning somewhere. There is crime everywhere. Unfortunately, many on here compare the stats to those of Coz and the like. Guess what??? That is like comparing a BP&W to a Jacket style BCD. Two different types of diving and situations. As Clay stated, it is Shore Diving Heaven. This means everybody knows that once they see a diver go into the water, their vehicle will be unattended to for about 45 minutes to an hour. This just goes with shore diving. In Cozumel, you do not have a vehicle (or most do not I believe - I sure did not) that you drop in a remote location. There is not one doubt in my mind anywhere that if Cozumel was set-up the same way as Bonaire for "side of road" shore diving, there would be many more theft claims.
Now for the general conversation.
Bottom line is....DO NOT got to Bonaire. They do not want you there. DO go to Boanire. They would love to see you there. It is a great place where you just have to excercise some COMMON SENSE. Either way, the island will befine because MANY of us love it.
What really drives me absolutely over the edge nuts (a shorter trip than I had originally thought) is those who would have every discussion about Bonaire censored to remove all of the bad statements. It is a Beautiful island with tons of amazing shore diving and needs nothing more than that to attract tens of thousands (or more maybe) of divers every year. Give people the good, the bad and the ugly (I was there last week so there is the ugly) and let them decide for themselves. Those that say it is way too dangerous for them.....well I would suggest never leaving your apartment or house because it is far safer than where almost any of us live. But, that is your choice. The island will do just fine without you. Those that look at it and see potential and go.....the island welcomes you. Excercise some common sense and all should be good.
I have not done a search, but the break ins at the rooms/resorts are less common (please do correct me if I am wrong) than truck break-ins and rifling of stuff in trucks. I would love to see actual (unbiased - good luck) statistics that should annually how many people travel there and how many actually have incidences. Is it 0.01%, 0.1%, 1%, 10%???? I personally think that the number would be much lower than many make it out to be.
Just my 2 cents but if you feel that I short changed you and you did not get 2 cents worth of value......take it up with the manager
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And to end it all off......if the "perps" were not caught, then how do we know for absolute fact that it was not other divers that stole things? There are some sketchy people out there, and I bet some of them dive....
on all Regional Travel and Dive Clubs for target theft gives a significant portion of threads focusing here, at least to the extent of divers discussing how to avoid it - if not scuffling with an armed bandit in a room 17 steps from the pool, running naked into the night to stop a gas thieve in the hotel parking lot, losing laptop and more while sleeping in the same apartment being burgled, and so forth. Indeed it does seem like "it could be severely curbed by a caring and active police force," but there - most seem to just accept that it's part of the scene day or night, town or hotel, and with shore dives one poster explaining that he leaves his Crocs or TEVA sandals hidden in the water "tied to a dive weight." 
And while I can agree about not leavings in vehicles even tho that means not playing with the toys I like, I've never felt a need to lock them up in the room or buy extra security alarms for windows and doors.
