Service technicians from a Midas Automotive Service Center in Nanaimo came to work on Tuesday morning, Aug. 9, expecting to fix vehicles, but were instead the cleanup crew after an overnight burglary. The thieves stole two vehicles by driving them through the company’s bay doors.
A worker at the repair shop, on the corner of Old Island Highway and Brechin Road, said the culprits broke in through a bay window and then broke into a van and a car , with which they fled by smashing them through the garage doors.
Along with efforts to clean up debris, staff were busy calling customers to cancel service appointments. They said it could be several days before the business resumes operations.
Nanaimo RCMP have confirmed they are investigating the break-in. const. Nanaimo RCMP spokesman Gary O’Brien said security motion sensors in the building triggered the alarm system around 3:30 a.m.
“What we do know is that a stone was thrown through the glass windows which allowed access,” he said.
The suspect(s) fled with a white 2019 Ford F-350 rental vehicle without license plates and a black 2009 Subaru with license plate #LF1 61C. The rear of both vehicles, O’Brien said, would have sustained significant damage as they drove through the doors.
The police don’t have much to do so far. There are no known witnesses and O’Brien said security video footage of the break-in was grainy and unusable for the investigation. The police hope that witnesses will provide information.
“The one thing that works to our advantage, as far as the investigation goes, is that it would have caused a significant amount of noise, especially at this time of night when it’s relatively quiet, so if anyone who was driving, working, driving, walking, whatever, if they heard or saw anything – two vehicles would have taken off, probably at a relatively high speed – we hope someone can help us here,” O’Brien said. .
He said the Midas outlet had operated there for about 40 years and had not had such serious incidents.
Anyone with information about the burglary or the two stolen vehicles is asked to contact the Nanaimo RCMP Detachment non-emergency line at 250-754-2345 and quote file number 2022-27497.
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