Crime spree!

By Shaun Inguanzo
DANDENONG South’s industrial area has been hit by a spate of criminal activity and local police have warned the situation is likely to continue.
Dandenong Police detectives believe they are only ‘putting a bandaid’ on Dandenong South’s crime hot spots such as Hammond Road, blaming the industrial environment for attracting criminal activity.
Detectives have now called upon the community to assist them in providing information for several recent cases including a fire at the Castricum Brothers abattoir along Hammond Road on 27 January, which decimated the premises and left a $4 million cleanup bill.
Detective Senior Constable Gary Richards said the fire showed evidence of a wellplanned arson attack.
“The offenders would have to have had an intricate knowledge of the working of the plant,” Det Sen Const Richards said.
Emergency services were called to the blaze at 1.50am on Friday 27 January after fire broke out in the roof of the factory.
But the factory fire was not the sole episode for Dandenong detectives according to Detective Senior Constable Dean Hayes.
A week prior to the blaze, thieves stole $100,000 of goods from a Hammond Road automotive shop, including tools and an engine supercharger, sometime between 3pm on 19 January and 7am on 20 January.
Det Sen Const Hayes said intruders appeared to have entered via the roof, and exited via a rollerdoor.
He said that industrial areas, particularly Hammond Road, attracted crime.
“It is probably always going be the same situation, we will always be putting a bandaid over it each time,” he said.
“Factory areas are prone to that sort of behaviour, we will do what we can to increase patrols and to try and subside it.”
Police are also searching for a male after a separate incident on 28 January, when a female bystander outside Hammond Road’s Visy Board factory reported wilful and obscene exposure.
According to Det Sen Cons Hayes, a man in a dark green sedan travelling south along the road slowed down, called the bystander over, who then approached the side of the car and noticed the male driver had exposed himself.
Police would like to speak with the man who is described as Caucasian, aged between 30 and 35, with short, dark blond hair, and a gold sleeper in his left ear.
The flurry of callouts to the industrial area is not uncommon, according to Det Sen Cons Hayes.
“We’ve got around about 15 detectives, and everyone here would have at some stage investigated an incident down there,” he said.
Det Sen Const Hayes said police would conduct operations within Dandenong South in the future to tighten the noose on crime.
Detectives have urged anyone with information regarding the Hammond Road incidents to contact Dandenong CIU on 9767 7487, or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.