Footage from surveillance cameras show the thieves taking their time.An audacious group of thieves made off with about $100,000 in equipment after breaking into a Southwest Ranches, Florida, nursery.
The theft occurred about 12:30 a.m. on Friday at Real Green 23 2-3’s plant nursery. According to the owner, Kendly Pierre, nothing like this has happened to him in his 17 years in the nursery business.
“It’s a setback, a lot of money. I’m going to try to regroup and start over,” he told The Sun Sentential. “Start fresh, I’ll get back up again.”
After using bolt cutters on the fence’s padlocks, surveillance video shows two individuals hot-wired Pierre’s Ford F-350, and used a trailer to load up earth-moving equipment.
“They took a truck, a skid-steer loader, a trailer and a Kubota,” Pierre told WPLG Local 10.
A little before 3 a.m., the thieves returned with two others to load the trailer up with more equipment, including a utility vehicle.
“I was shocked,” Pierre said. “I couldn’t believe that they were that bold (and that) they took that kind of chance.”
The thieves also spent a considerable amount of time attempting to steal a new $75,000 loader, but it was blocked in by a large tractor.
The Davie police are investigating the matter, but Pierre knows he might not recover his equipment. He is more interested in the burglars’ being caught.
A friend of Pierre’s owns a nursery about a mile from Real Green 23 2-3, and his business was hit two weeks earlier.
“I am going to work as hard as I can to make sure that they get caught so they don’t do it to the next person, because fellow landscapers, nursery men and farmers – we work hard for what we have,” Pierre said.
