Terrified garage man’s brush with armed bandit
An Auckland man says he is lucky to be alive after his car repair workshop was held up by a man armed with a sawn-off shotgun.
Danny Dhanak, the owner of the Midas Automotive workshop on Quay St in central Auckland, was at work with one of his technicians when a tall man wearing grey and black clothes including a hoodie, with a red bandanna covering most of his face, came in with the shotgun about 7.30am.
Dhanak had observed the man driving back and forth in front of the business several times before he stormed in and demanded the keys for another car, Dhanak’s black Ford Falcon XR8, worth $15,000 to $18,000.
The offender did not threaten to shoot anyone, instead making his point with his weapon — whether it was a real gun or a toy, Dhanak wasn’t sure.
“He pointed it right at me,” Dhanak said. “He just showed me. He said, ‘I want the car now.’ He swore at me a whole bunch of times.
“I kind of hesitated in the beginning. I thought it was a joke. He swore at me two or three times. As he came in he was yelling and screaming.”
Dhanak said the incident earlier this month was scary and he suspected the man was high on drugs, as his eyes were “bulging out of his head”.
He was not sad about losing the car, which was insured and was “only a material thing”.
“My life is a bit more important than a material car. You know, as long as I go home to my family and my daughter and my wife, that’s the main thing . . . I’m just lucky to be alive.”
Dhanak’s video surveillance cameras captured images of the offender and police said yesterday their inquiries were ongoing. No one had been arrested.