Reward offered for Penrose battery bandits

Shannon Chambers has shared CCTV footage of the thieves' car. Photo / Facebook

A frustrated Auckland businessman has offered a meaty reward for information about brazen battery bandits who raided his yard.

For anyone who catches and delivers the thieves back to crime scene, the money doubles. Shannon Chambers has shared CCTV footage of the thieves' car far and wide in an effort to track them.

On Monday morning, between 2.40 and 2.48, three men stole 30 batteries from machines at the Total Access Yard on Maurice Rd, Penrose."They kindly cut them out leaving us a massive mess to fix," Mr Chambers wrote in a Facebook post shared thousands of times.

"They stopped on Station Rd outside the gas station in what looks like a dark-coloured Holden Commodore VP or VR with a body kit and while one of them lifted the bonnet and pretended it was broken down the other two cut through our fence."

Mr Chambers' wife, Vicki Chambers, owns the construction equipment supply firm and Mr Chambers is a project manager there.

Much of his time this week, however, has been spent on the thieves' trail. Mr Chambers is offering $5000 to anyone who gives him the thieves' names and addresses and $10,000 to anyone who delivers them and the stolen batteries to the yard, but so far hasn't needed to part with his cash.

Mr Chambers told the Herald people had given enough information to possibly identify the trio. That has been passed to police and Mr Chambers is waiting for them to act.

"From what other people have been saying, they've been running riot through Penrose for years. It's been amazing, the amount of people that rang up that don't even want a reward, they just want to see them caught. I've had 50 calls and no one wants the money."

He believes the battery bandits have also struck eight other businesses in the area.The batteries weren't worth much, but Mr Chambers is angry about the damage to the vehicles when they were removed. This took four workers three days to fix and potentially robbed the business of tens of thousands of dollars in lost work.

Mr Chambers thought police could do more. A police spokeswoman confirmed Auckland city officers were looking into the thefts, following "a number of lines of inquiry".

"We would never advise members of the public to take matters into their own hands. However, should they wish to offer legitimate rewards for assistance, this is not an offence provided it is a legitimate offer," she said.

"We take all burglary incidents very seriously and do all we can to try to find a quick resolution. In this incident we have had Soco officers attend the scene as well as our local investigative team to ensure that we have all possible information and leads."We are doing all we can to resolve this matter. We are grateful for the information provided to date," the spokeswoman said.

Police were looking into similar incidents in Penrose and were patrolling streets at night. The spokeswoman said anyone who saw suspicious behaviour or has information about burglaries can contact police or send footage and images to its Facebook page.