Service station owners appeal for help to stop rampaging gangs

30 July 2018

SAMANTHA HUTCHINSON
THE NATION

CCTV image of A thief stealing cigarettes during Tuesday morning’s service station attack.

Terrified service station owners say the Victorian government has to do more to stop teen gangs targeting petrol stations for cigarettes, cash and petrol after a lone petrol station attendant was terrorised on Tuesday morning.

APCO service station directors Rob and Peter Anderson say they are still considering offering a $15,000 bounty to anyone who can hand over the culprits who ransacked a Lara station in a violent dawn raid.

The attendant barricaded himself in a locked office when he saw the four thugs drive up to the station at high speed. Three of the men, including two of African-Australian appearance, smashed through the station’s locked glass doors with hammers, and then took to the locked office door, breaking the frame behind which the terrified attendant was hiding.

Once through the door, the men shouted and threatened to kill the employee unless he handed over cash and the entire contents of the cigarette cupboard, before fleeing in the car driven by a getaway driver.

By yesterday, police had located the stolen Mercedes four-wheel drive but the service station directors said the thugs were still on the loose.

They were unsure whether the station attendant caught up in the attack would ever feel confident enough to get back to work.

Rob Anderson said the attack was symptomatic of a broader law enforcement problem spurred on by the growing violence of youth gangs, and by the spiralling costs of cigarettes, which have converted cigarette cabinets into gold mines.

“I suppose it was an ‘if not, when’ proposition for us,” he said.

“We’ve been to so many crime forums for people who are in the same business as us, and we kind of knew it was inevitable something like this would happen.”

The price of cigarettes, which will jump 12.5 per cent next week, has turned cigarette cabinets into lucrative targets.

Australian Association of Convenience Stores chief executive Jeff Rogut said Victorian service station owners were facing a two-pronged risk.

They were under threat from youth gangs who saw service stations as easy targets for midnight robberies, while other groups often put young thugs up to the robberies in a bid to steal tobacco to feed thriving black markets, he said.

Posted in Industry News

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Service station owners appeal for help to stop rampaging gangs

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