Police have recovered the truck used by thieves to smash into a Wendouree hobby store at the weekend.
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The tip truck smashed through the front door and wall of Harpers Hobbies and Collectables on Sunday morning.
The hooded thieves caused $9000 worth of damage to take just one item, a $400 model train scenery box, from the Harold Street business.
Yesterday, detectives recovered the truck in McNulty Drive in Wendouree.
It had been stolen from a Grandlee Drive business before the ram-raid.
The offenders, both the driver of the truck and the person who entered the store to steal the train set, remain on the run.
On Sunday, the store’s owner Tony Cini said he had been left devastated by the ram-raid, which collapsed the building’s entire front facade.
Mr Cini said it was the fourth time the shop had been the target of violent thieves in the past two years.
Security vision shows a white tip truck reversing through the front door at 4.20am, bringing the ceiling and air-conditioning unit crashing down.
A hooded person jumps out of the truck and makes a bee-line for an old box of model train scenery.
Mr Cini said the box had been sitting in the store, unsold, for the past two years.
“It’s devastating – at the end of the day you want to feel like having a cry and getting out of here,” Mr Cini said.
Mr Cini said he would have to shut down for a least a week while repairs were completed.
"They can bring in a tank next"
Previously, vandals have repeatedly thrown rocks through the front windows of the store, breaking in and stealing expensive remote control cars.
Mr Cini responded by installing security cameras and reinforcing the glass front door.
Detective Senior Constable Troy Wickham from the Ballarat Crime Investigation Unit said anyone with information could contact him on 5336 6081.
jordan.oliver@fairfaxmedia.com.au