More than $10,000 worth of electronic equipment was stolen in a brazen daylight break and enter robbery, Sunday morning at The Source in Aldergrove.
Video surveillance recorded a team of five young persons who used an eight-foot wooden post and a car as a battering ram to gain entry, at about 6:30 a.m., March 6. This method enabled them to get around the bollards that The Source owner, Craig Anderson, installed a few years ago after another robbery in which a car was driven through the front of the store.
After repeatedly backing the car into the post the plate glass was smashed and then the robbers used the post as a lever to rip out the metal bars. Within two minutes they had gained entry.
The driver of the car appeared to wait outside in the car as a lookout while the other four ransacked the store for high-end items such as computer laptops and flat-screen TVs. They filled plastic totes with the goods, which they carried outside.
After about two minutes of this the car pulled up outside the front window and the gang loaded most of the goods inside it. The fully-loaded car then sped off, leaving three of the gang behind.
This trio then carted off totes of goods as they ran off on foot.
However, police arrived in time to capture one of them, a 28-year-old woman. She was in custody in the back of the police patrol car when The Source staff arrived on the scene.
The other two appeared to have leaped the fence at the back of the Countryside shopping centre, leaving some of the totes behind on the ground.
Anderson said some goods were recovered, however, most were seriously damaged.