11:51am Monday 5th January 2009
Daring thieves stole a safe with £15,000 from Superdrug in Sutton High Street by pulling bricks out of the store’s wall.
The meticulously planned operation was carried out in the early hours of Monday December 29 at the height of the Christmas shopping period.
Four men wearing balaclavas disabled two CCTV cameras to the rear of Marks and Spencer off Throwley Road, before entering the locked alleyway, ripping off an air vent and removing bricks from the wall.
They climbed through and made another hole in an office wall and removed the safe.
Marks and Spencer store manager Becky Booty, 28, said an employee locked the gates after the store closed at 5pm.
She said: "The CCTV cameras were taken out of action. One was ripped off the wall, the other was covered by some sort of chemical. Whoever did this must have had a key to the gates as our employee definitely locked them."
Maintenance man Mark Mitchell, 33 said. "There was no sign of a forced entry when we got here on Monday. They knew exactly where to go to get the safe. The office wall was only plaster board so it wouldn’t have taken much to put it through. They dragged the safe through some double doors and out the vent into they alleyway."
A spokesman for Sutton Police said: “The store manager arrived for work that morning to find the heavy, 2.5ft square safe had been prised from its mountings. The safe contained a quantity of cash.”
Police believe the thieves escaped in a van, driving along Throwley Way and then turning left into Greyhound Road.
The van’s registration plate is thought to start with LA51.
Anyone with information is urged to call Detective Constable Victor Barkes at Sutton CID on 020 8649 0747 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
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