Police hope to tie the suspects arrested Saturday to a small crime wave of vending machine break-ins that has hit Harvard, Boston College, Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Across the area, vending machines at the schools have been jimmied open at the rate of two or three per week per school since late summer, police have said.

HUPD, working in conjunction with other Boston-area police departments, has been actively searching for the suspects for weeks, using security cameras, plainclothes officers, special details and increased patrols by police and security guards in the hopes of catching the culprits.

Police charged both McCauley and Morley with breaking and entering in the nighttime, breaking and entering a depository, two counts of possession of burglary tools--all felonies--and trespassing, a misdemeanor. The investigation into the thefts will continue, and additional charges may be forthcoming.

"We've been working this really hard, and this was the break we needed," Kotowski said.

The thefts have come in waves. In the course of two weeks just before school started, every vending machine at the law school was hit at least once.

--Staff writer Garrett M. Graff can be reached at ggraff@fas.harvard.edu.