A family business based in Redbank, Queensland have shared their joy after their stolen trailer and dolly were recovered.
Mark Eastwell, who runs cargo and freight company Eastwells Haulage, offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the equipment’s recovery – and it has paid off.
Eastwell said a tip-off led to police finding it concealed in a shed around Bideston, between Toowoomba and Pittsworth.
“Someone had seen my Facebook post about the stolen trailer and dolly,” he said.
“They rang me and gave me a tip off that they had spotted them hidden in a hayshed.
“I rang the police. The people who stole the equipment were known to police.
“They went out and arrested a couple of them and we were able to go pick it up.”
He added that he is happy and relieved to have the trailer and dolly back.
“I’m very pleased. There were a few things we had to fix, but the damage was minimal.
“I will be paying the reward to the person who tipped me off.”
A 2022 Moore white/red lead drop deck tipper and a 2022 Moore red tri dolly owned by Eastwells were taken from Pittsworth road train breakup pad in the Toowoomba region of Queensland between 10.30am on Friday October 6 and 10.30am on Sunday October 8.
Eastwell told Big Rigs at the time that the robbery couldn’t have been planned far in advance.
“One of our drivers split his road train at the road train pad in Pittsworth on Friday morning, to go unload the trailers,” he said.
“The only reason he didn’t hook it back up was because he had to do a B-double load, so he just took his back two trailers and left his lead and dolly there.
“When he came back on Sunday morning to hook it back to the road train they were gone.
“It’s not like someone saw them sitting there for a long time and thought ‘Oh, they’ve been forgotten about, no-one will notice if I grab them.’ Within 36 hours they were gone.”
Eastwell shared that the items were worth approximately $200,000 and their loss would leave him substantially out of pocket.
The incident also came at an especially inconvenient time for the company, as the owners Mark and Robyn are in the process of taking a step back to “focus on the finer things” like time with family and travel.
“My wife and I are actually in the process of taking a bit of a step back with our business, and had made the tough decision to disperse all trucks and trailers in our fleet and move in a different direction,” he continued.
“We’re still going to have our workshop, River Road Mechanical. Eastwells will run as a loading agent. We’re just slowing down a bit.”
Eastwells will be selling their fleet through Ritchie Bros in their National Unreserved End-of-Year Auction on November 29-30 (see here for more information).
“It’s about 145 pieces of equipment in total,” Eastwell said.
“The trailer and dolly have been fixed up now and sent down to Ritchie Bros. They will also be for sale in the auction.”