By STEVE GRAY
THEY were only tiny scraps of information, but public help led to Warwick police nabbing a criminal gang allegedly responsible for a wave of jewellery store robberies across southeast Queensland.
Detectives told a public crime forum in the city that the smallest piece of information could help police solve major crimes.
Detective Ryan Harmer said police knew nothing about a criminal gang who had allegedly robbed 15 jewellery stores across southeast Queensland of more than $1 million, except that “whoever was doing it was very good at it”. They had no suspects, no descriptions.
Then one night the gang targeted Prouds Jewellers in Warwick.
A triple zero phone call on the morning of 8 August last year alerted police to a car fire in Ogilvie Rd, just north of Warwick CBD. At about the same time they learned of the robbery of the Prouds store.
Police linked damage to a security screen at Prouds with a sledgehammer head found in the burnt-out, stolen car.
Information from the public trickled in.
The first vital clue came when someone reported three men acting suspiciously in the shopping centre the day before the robbery. This allowed police to view security camera footage of three heavily clad suspects.
Then a motel manager reported that the three may have stayed there.
Police searched a rubbish bin at the motel and recovered food packaging and a shirt which returned the DNA of two of the suspects, positively identifying them.
Eight days after the robbery one of these “persons of interest” was arrested leaving a Brisbane brothel. A search of his car revealed a sawn-off shotgun and jewellery.
The next day two police were lunching at McDonald’s, Chermside when a second suspect happened to walk in.
Arrested, the man made full confessions, allegedly including admitting to the Warwick job.
On 18 August Warwick and local detectives raided a Brisbane hotel room and nabbed the third alleged offender, the gang’s mastermind, along with stolen property.
Two men who police allege had participated in some of the earlier robberies were also swept up. All five remain in custody awaiting trial, charged with over 30 break-and-enter offences and other crimes.
Detective Harmer said the gang was captured thanks to members of the public who had reported the three criminals acting suspiciously, and that they had stayed in the motel.
“Success of that job comes down to public co-operation with police,” he said.
