Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Thieves ‘not welcome here’
A gang of balaclava-clad copper thieves almost shut down a business after causing £30,000 worth of damage during a raid.
A judge launched a blistering attack on Costel Coscodaru, 25, Mihai Florin, 19, and Marih Iliahca, 39, who targeted Goody Demolition in Aylesham shortly after arriving in the UK from
Romania.
The trio fled after stripping £1,500 worth of the metal, but a police helicopter scrambled shortly after the alarms were activated soon traced them trying to escape through nearby marshland.
All three were handed 31 months’ custody at Canterbury Crown Court after pleading guilty to burglary.
They were part of a five-strong gang that left £30,000 worth of damage in their wake. The other two have not been found.
Judge Rupert Lowe said: “This was a nasty professional burglary with a savage disregard for someone else’s business in a country that was hosting you.
“In these circumstances, foreign nationals who come here and commit crime, causing enormous loss, the near-closure of a business and deep personal distress to hard-working men and women and their families, are not welcome here and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
“You Coscodaru and Florin, were here only days before committing this very serious offence, you Iliahca had been here for some months. I regard with scepticism the idea you came here to work honestly.”
The court heard Coscodaru and Florin arrived in the UK from Romania only days before targeting the premises in Wilcox
Close on the evening of February 5 last year.
Wearing balaclavas and hats, the gang smashed a hole through a metal fence, and then the side of the premises.
A helicopter traced them attempting to get rid of the stolen items, with two of the gang making an escape.
All three, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to burglary in March, and were sentenced on May6.