Waitematä Police investigating the burglary of a Wairau Valley gun store are seeking information from members of the public who may have been in the area at the time of the crime.
At around 10.17pm on Wednesday 9 October, three offenders broke into Wills Fishing and Firearms on Wairau Road. They stole 21 shotguns and 12 handguns and then fled.
The burglary was captured on CCTV and the footage shows the offenders were well organised, which leads Police to believe the firearms were the target of the burglary. They were heavily disguised, and identification of the offenders from the footage will be unlikely.
"This burglary appears to have been well planned; the offenders were in the shop for less than 2 minutes. It's obviously concerning to us that this amount of firearms are now in the hands of criminals, we believe a vehicle was used and we'd appeal to anyone who was in the area at the time to think back and consider if they saw anything that appeared out of the ordinary or suspicious, including vehicles" says Detective Inspector Greg Cramer, Waitematä Police.
"We're working hard to identify the offenders, reviewing CCTV footage taken from the neighbouring area at the time of the burglary and are analysing the results of a forensic scene examination. We'd urge anyone who travelled through the Wairau Road area last Wednesday night to really think hard about whether they saw anything" says D.I. Cramer.
Investigators are reviewing files on known offenders and working to establish whether the burglary is linked to a similar theft that took place at Gun City in central Auckland, in July.
Security at the store will also be reviewed over the course of the investigation.
Two images taken from CCTV are attached to this release.
ENDS
Detective Inspector Greg Cramer is available for interview until 11.30am
Please phone Beth Bates on 0274 752 518 to organise this.
