It looks like an action from a Laurel and Hardy movie: a burglar steals cans of paint, takes the loot with him on his bicycle and suddenly leaves a trail of paint behind. Tom Castricum can now laugh about last weekend’s burglary in his paint shop on Stetweg in Castricum, but he was still surprised when he missed 45 cans.
According to Tom, the theft was not very clever. Apart from the logistical challenge the perpetrator had, the paint is virtually useless. “The stolen paint is basic white and you still have to mix it, for example to make RAL 9010,” explains the owner of the paint store. “You could paint with this paint, but no one does. It’s really meant to be mixed.”
45 cans of two and a half liters
According to the 36-year-old entrepreneur, the burglar did not ‘work very professionally, but he knew what he was looking for.’ On camera images you see how the burglar enters and immediately walks towards his loot. “He starts by loading the cans, two and a half liters,” Tom continues. “Twenty minutes later the perpetrator leaves with two filled bicycle bags, a backpack and two blue garbage bags on his handlebars.”
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The trip did not go very smoothly. The man must have fallen once during the bike ride. Further upstate there is a large puddle of white paint with shoe prints. Tom: “I continued along the trail. You hope it might end up at a house. But it stopped further along at the rugby fields, where I also found a shoe.”
Another suspect
After police investigations, the profile of the shoe appears to match the paint print. But the police say they have not yet arrested a suspect. However, the investigation into the camera images is ongoing. If this does not lead to anything, we will check whether the images can be made public.
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Tom has now repaired the damage to his building and is awaiting further police investigation. He does think that the perpetrator must be someone from the area. “I can’t imagine that he cycled to Den Helder, but yes. I don’t know for sure.”