Boulevard Services managing director Shaun McPherson said the thieves reversed the stolen truck through the padlocked iron gate, destroying it. Photo / James Pocock
Boulevard Services managing director Shaun McPherson said the thieves reversed the stolen truck through the padlocked iron gate, destroying it. Photo / James Pocock
Burglars rammed down the locked gates of a Napier business with a stolen truck during the theft of an estimated $40,000 worth of property.
The Onekawa premises of commercial and industrial cleaning company Boulevard Services was broken into about 3.50am on Sunday.
Managing director Shaun McPherson said the incident wasfirst discovered when a staff member arrived at 6.30am, about an hour and a half after the burglars had fled.
"The police were called and they thankfully did attend very quickly, within 30 minutes which really did impress me."
He said that the police searched for fingerprints, but were unfortunately unable to find any.
He estimates they made off with about $40,000 worth of items including a white 1995 Mitsubishi Canter truck with the Boulevard services logo on the doors and front.
"The vehicle had a $15,000 hot water blaster unit mounted in the body of the truck. They took lots of hand tools and attempted to steal a quad bike as well, but the keys weren't in it, they weren't able to move it."
The stolen vehicle, a white 1995 Mitsubishi Canter with the Boulevard services logo on the doors and front and DLP761 on the number plate. Photo / Supplied
He said he was concerned that their alarms were not tripped right away by the burglars' entry.
"They were in our building for 37 minutes, which was of huge concern."
He said most of the incident has been caught on cameras with sound.
The three offenders forced entry by cutting a hole in chain link fence around the property and using a crowbar on wall cladding rivets on the building,
A fourth offender was spotted by cameras waiting in a white Honda Odyssey with no number plates parked in the Traffic Management NZ carpark across the road, which McPherson suspects is a stolen vehicle.
"We believe that's the same car that was stolen from the Municipal Theatre car park on Saturday evening. The owner of the car contacted me and believes it's their car."
He said once the alarms finally went off the offenders quickly left, leaving a trail of destruction.
"When the alarm did trip, that's when they hightailed it out of there and reversed our truck straight out the gates, absolutely demolished them."
The burglars cut their way onto the premises through the chain link fence, and used a crowbar to pop open rivets on some wall cladding to get access to the inside. Photo / Supplied
The stolen truck had GPS tracking which was cut out by the burglars before they left.
