YET another Monday morning has found a number of Bombala’s business people opening up their shops and offices to find that they have been broken into overnight.
In the latest attack of what has become a long spate of break and enters in Bombala, more businesses than ever were targeted by thieves between Saturday night and early Monday morning this week.
Amongst those that were broken into were Maybe Furniture, Bom-bala Fabrics Furniture
and Technology, Bom-bala Antiques, Tableland Motors and Cottrell Motors.
BKM Clothing was also robbed for the second time, and while thieves had tried and failed to gain access in past months to Platypus Crash Repairs, they were successful this time around.
A car was stolen from Tableland Motors, but was found just a little way up the road in Maybe Street, and was taken to the Bombala Police Station on Monday for forensic investigation.
A second vehicle was stolen from Cottrell Motors, and is yet to be found.
The thieves came prepared with electric drills and grinders to force their way into safes, and managed to get away with sums of cash from many of the businesses affected, chiefly from cash registers.
Others simply found their premises ransacked and will now need to pay repair costs for the entrance points where the criminals managed to force their way inside.
Local police attended the affected businesses on Monday, with Crime Scene personnel set to investigate each of the premises involved.
Now in charge of the operation, Senior Constable Lambert of Delegate revealed that local police are liaising with detectives from Bega on the identification of possible suspects.
Police urge anyone who may have seen anything unusual between Saturday night and Monday morning, or who has any information to contact the Bombala Station on 6458 3444 or through Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Callers can remain anonymous.
Naturally the business people affected, and the wider community, are greatly angered by the latest spate of break-ins, with the crimes having become frustratingly regular.
While police are undertaking investigations and fingerprinting was set to take place this week, concerns have been voiced that the attackers are under little threat of being discovered.
One business person who was affected in a previous break and enter, and who wishes to remain anonymous, said that although the police had attended after the crime, slow progress had been made on apprehending any offenders.
The disenchanted business owner said that they had heard nothing from the police about the break-in for weeks and held little hope that further progress would be made.
Meanwhile other businesses are concerned about their own security, and fear that insurance costs are bound to increase as the amount of claims for our small local area skyrockets.
So frustrated are the business people of the community over the continual break-ins that a public meeting was proposed to be held last night, Tuesday, Novem-ber 3 to discuss the matter.
In the interest of assisting local businesses in anyway possible, BADDA proposed and hosted the meeting, which was designed to discuss what action can be taken to protect local operations from further attacks.
More in next week’s Bombala Times.
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