Provincial police in Brant County say they are on the hunt for three people after a pickup truck was rammed into a hobby shop in Paris, Ont., before thieves made off with thousands of dollars worth of RC trucks.
Police say the truck was driven into the front window of Paris Junction Hobbies on Feb. 15 at around 3:36 a.m., setting an alarm off which notified owner Dave Henwood.
“I was here by 3:50 a.m. because I don’t live very far away and they were already long gone,” Henwood said.
He told Global News that his shop offers RC planes, RC trucks, plastic models and trains. But the thieves targeted the RC trucks.
“They were definitely familiar with the store and the store layout,” Henwood explained. “Two of the trucks they stole were actually in our back room. In the area where we keep our special orders for customers.”
Paris Junction Hobbies posted security footage of the incident on their Facebook page, showing how quickly the thieves were able to make it on and out of the shop after rear-ending the building to smash through the bars behind the front windows.
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Henwood said bandits made off with “34 RC trucks ranging in price from, I think on the low side, around $300, and on the high side around $800. Total value of the trucks stolen was just shy of $16,000.”
He explained that his estimate was based on his cost, with the retail figure being between $24,000 and $30,000.
While Paris Junction Hobbies has been in business for 20 years, Henwood told Global News that this is the third time the business has suffered a break-and-enter.
“This has been the worst. They did the most damage this time, but we’ve had two prior break-and-enters where they just broke the windows and came in,” he explained. “So after the last time they broke windows, we put the bars on the windows and that’s kept us relatively safe for the last six years.
“But they don’t stop a truck from driving through the wall.”
While Henwood said thieves have targeted RC trucks every time his store has been broken into, it is unclear where they are ending up. In total, he figures around 65 trucks have been stolen.
“None of them have ever turned up anywhere,” he recalled.
“I don’t have any proof of this, but there’s rumors and rumblings that there are RC chop shops, shall we say,” Henwood explained. “And they take trucks. They don’t really care where they got them, and they break them apart and they sell all the parts on eBay.”
That is because the parts individually are worth more than the trucks as a whole, Henwood explained.
OPP say they are looing for a red pickup truck with the Ontario licence plate BZ93765. It had been reported stolen in Hamilton prior to the incident.
Police say the three suspects were “wearing hooded sweaters, gloves, and sunglasses to conceal their identities.”
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