By KATHRYN BERMINGHAM AND ANEEKA SIMONIS
A PAKENHAM family are more than $20,000 out of pocket after thieves dressed as contractors targeted their Berwick home.
But they aren’t the only ones who have fallen victim to these brazen, disguised criminals.
Police have issued a warning to home owners to be on alert with reports of fake tradesmen burglaring Cardinia Shire homes in what may be a growing trend in local crime.
On Wednesday 5 August, Sage Harvey was moving belongings from her home on Ingliss Road, Berwick, into a new house in Pakenham’s Worthington Estate.
After leaving the house at 10.30am, she returned to the Ingliss Road property about 12.45pm after delivering a load to the new house to find a dual cab ute parked in the driveway.
“When I got there, I saw a painter’s car in the driveway, which I didn’t think too much of since there had been contractors at the house fairly regularly,” she said.
“There was an older gentleman in the car. I asked him what he was doing and he said ‘I’m just here for a job’.”
Sage became suspicious after another man emerged from the house.
All men were dressed as tradesmen.
“I continued into the driveway and another guy came walking out and got in the car and then a third jumped the back fence and they all started speeding away.
“I got back in the car and gunned it after them; they would have been flying. I chased them to Narre Warren North but they ran a red and got away.”
On returning to the house, Sage found that the men had busted through the door and the deadlock to gain entry to the house.
“I ran to my bedroom and found it completely trashed. The drawers were turned inside out.”
The trio had stolen cameras, ipods, phones, laptops, cash and archery equipment believed to be worth over $20,000.
“They’d gone through everything, they must have been there for a while. Even the utensil drawer.”
Police attending the scene took fingerprints, and Sage has performed a car demonstration, however as yet, the offenders have not been caught.
The timing of the incident meant that the contents of the home were uninsured – Sage had transferred her home insurance policy to the new property just the previous day.
“We estimate over $20,000 gone and there’s nothing we can do. It’s just devastating.”
During that same morning, a Pakenham couple reported a similar, eerie incident where a man posing as a tradesman made a quick getaway after being caught inside their home.
Just before 11am, the female property owner came home to find her bedroom drawers open.
She went downstairs to ask her partner about the drawers only to learn he had been startled by a man disguised as a tradesman as he was eating breakfast in the kitchen.
Upon questioning, the man, described as Caucasian, 180 cm tall and unshaven wearing a black ski jacket and fawn-coloured pants, said he was ‘in the wrong house’, quickly taking off over the back fence.
The couple later found jewellery strewn across the backyard and reported a loss of $300 cash.
Police believe the man entered the home through the unlocked front door and is a likely suspect in an earlier burglary where hunting knives and electronic equipment were taken from a nearby home in Pakenham.
Detective Senior Sergeant Trevor Smith from Cardinia’s Crime Investigation Unit (CIU) said the incidents could be part of an emerging trend in crime and urged anyone with information about the incidents to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
