(Photos of tourists ‘looted’ suitcase found on a nearby property.)

Understandably, this subject is usually avoided in motel reports.  The bad news was TRM guests in Unit 1 suffered a car burglary last Friday.  As other guests had seen their panic and grief with police vehicles driving in and out of TRM, we assured other guests we would follow it up and keep them informed on our Daily Report.  These unfortunate incidents need to be exposed to improve public awareness of the problem.  We hate writing negative reports about anything but fortunately this one has a successful ending.

Where ever tourists travel these days they need to be aware of the need for continual security, i.e. lock everything, etc.  Do not give the offenders a chance…  The Herald recently exposed how much worse these nasty unsolved crimes are in Auckland where only 6.2% of burglaries were solved and on average 9.3% of 59,845 solved nationwide.  From their reports, we do not think Turangi is any worse.  But in a tourist town it is unfortunate when overseas visitors suffer as they leave NZ with unhappy memories and a poor impression of their visit.

The above photos are from last Friday when a tourists car was broken into and their bag of souvenirs with other belongings, such as a Kindle reader, were stolen.

Obviously this is a sensitive subject and it is important that we do not over-play it.  To put things into perspective, in the last 12 years at TRM we have only suffered a couple of times although there have been several other small incidents when we have discovered local kids on the property – wandering through to check if TRM’s bikes are securely locked?  They usually claim they are looking for their dog or some other lame excuse.

As such, TRM take an aggressive stance in beefing up security to try not to give them a chance.

The usual security lighting and cameras operates on all entrances.

That is why term “inmates” was introduced as the ‘warden’ was seen patrolling every evening with a bundle of keys making sure everything is secure.

This includes making sure anglers do not leave fishing rods or other easily transported gear outside overnight.

They thought they had locked the back door of their hatch back in the photo but discovered too late that locking the front doors did not automatically lock the rear door.

The good news is that the local police report that following the burglary the ‘Taupo Tactical Crime Unit’ initiated a local property search and from what they found, continued with three other searches which identified the offenders (kids) – the result so far is 4 offenders charged, a substantial amount of property recovered and more information for further enquiries.

The tourists – who had already left Turangi – were delighted to get their computer gear back as it held all their memories of their holiday in NZ.   Thank you to the local police involved.

Photo above of TRM’s dedicated security manager on duty..