Our small industrial estate got hit by a professional gang on Thursday night.
5 units broken into by forcing roller shutter doors up and entering.
Vans , Tools,Phones. Laptops a BSA motorbike, some beers from us.

In over a back fence , then started on the units without alarm boxes
( I got the quotes and was poo pooed by upstairs ) Then used stolen vans to force open the gates .

We lost a Sprinter and cash but it could have been much worse . They took the clean , un signwritten van as less identifiable and filled it up with gear from other units.

They were clocked by ANPR on the M40 ( coming from Hants )a few hours later so not very bright as no effort to conceal the vans true number plate with clones or electrical tape.

Police took 3 hours to bother to turn up, but once they realised the haul value, and the fact it wasnt 3 stoned yoofs, took it more seriuosly and spent most of the day searching around with soco looking for prints etc.

The cash is gone , clearly ( 4 fig sum ) and most likely the van . Feel for the guy who lost a Vito containing the BSA , lap top and tools.

Tis pish you camt have nice things no more without fear of having them taken.

A couple of my neighbours have been done over for car workshop tools and ifor williams trailers recently.

Stepped up my game with security since that happened …. Wasnt lax before what with bikes n all – but now its more.

It’s the run up to Xmas. One of my clients office gets done over every year. They just prise a door open and run off with laptops and whatever else they can find (they even took the tuck shop float the other year.) This is despite alarms and cctv. Last year they did the place over on a Friday, then came back Saturday night for more!

Our local toyota dealer was hit 2 weeks ago. 5 x hilux gone, safe etc. loads of tools gone. They found one of the hilux close to the Liverpool Tunnel.
My guess is ISIS need to replace the ones the yanks keep blowing up.

They found one of the hilux close to the Liverpool Tunnel.
My guess is ISIS need to replace the ones the yanks keep blowing up.

I had no idea ISIS were so active in the UK….

a mate had the Catalytic converter cut out of her wagon, while it was parked on the drive at a client’s and she was inside giving a pilates class FFS! IN a “nice” village too. I can understand it getting cut out of a car on Elgar Avenue* at three in the morning…but not in the village in broad daylight!

* Its not as nice as it sounds 😉

@singletrackmind were they heading up the M40 from Hants towards the Midlands? We were broken into in a very similar-sounding way in July and it was a gang from Staffordshire who have been doing similar jobs up and down the country. May be worth getting your local CID to compare notes with Dyfed-Powys police in Brecon in case there’s a link. Our lot have made one arrest at least.

Edit to say sorry to hear about this of course, it’s a right pain in the proverbial and not a pleasant experience for anyone to go through. Hope it all comes good for you.

Drovercyclces. Yes thats exactly what they were doing . Dont suppose a Fiat Ducato was one of the vans they used? as thats what they turned up in.

Going to park the fork lift forks on a fence post across the roller shutter door in future as they would have to work against the hydraulics to open the dooor, and get a Maplin alalrm , they do one that will ring 4 no’s if an alarm is activated

No they turned up here in a stolen Iveco van but it seems like they have a steady supply of vehicles. It was on fake plates though so that’s a bit different to yours.

The real similarity is with the roller shutters – this gang seem to be targeting places some distance from them and always the same type of building – clearly they’ve figured out how easy it is to get in.

Yale alarms do that too. Good bits of kit for the cost.

singletrackmind – Member

Going to park the fork lift forks on a fence post across the roller shutter door in future

We did something similar years ago at our stores (power tools etc), only they used to just ram the doors with a big van/4×4.

We raised the forks to engine height and made sure it was hard up against the back of the roller shutter door… The huge pool of oil & water on the yard front & the fact that 2 of the gang were arrested in hospital from a very sudden stop seemed to put a stop to it but we felt sorry for the poor blokes stolen Mitsubishi Canter van 🙁