By Violet Li
Panda Mart security guards are warning about the rising crime rates in the region and State-wide, after fighting against a daylight group robbery this week.
According to Victoria Police, a group of offenders robbed Cranbourne’s new discount warehouse at around 11am on Wednesday 26 March.
One widely circulating video shows one security guard trying to stop one of the men from robbery and a passer-by intervened, striking the offender with a guitar.
In another video, several men attempted to use metal bars to hit the store’s security guard and store staff. They then jumped onto a white van and fled away.
The security guard, who preferred not to be named due to the nature of his job, said the fight broke out after the staff tried to ask the robbers to show the receipts for their two full trolleys.
“As soon as we did that, one of the guys took a crowbar out and just started to try to hit someone,” he recalled.
“So as soon as he took it out, I just managed to get two trollies back.
“We tried to catch him, but his friends came up back with a van, taking out all the weapons to threaten everyone, and started breaking something with the metal bars and the crowbars.
“They were attempting to hit me, but I managed to protect myself.”
The guard recalled that the group drove the van onto the footpath and some passers-by were terrified.
A surveillance video also shows that about 20 minutes before the offence, another man in a black shirt shoplifted a whole trolley of items via the exit.
Another security guard, who also preferred to be anonymous, said it was the first time the store had run into a robbery of this scale and severity, but the crime rate in the area and state-wide was increasing.
He was grateful that his colleague was not hurt, but he knew a lot of security guards were getting hurt after violence towards them.
The latest state crime statistics show Casey recorded the highest number of criminal offences since 2016 in the 2024 calendar year, with a total of 27,285 offences.
The security guard said the store had been cracking down on retail thefts since its opening.
“It’s a lot of small stuff. A lot of people stole especially cosmetics and things like that. They just try the products as well and they put it back or they put stuff down their pockets,” he said.
“We’ve put in place a lot of methods to deal with that and we’ve had a pretty big impact on it.
“We reduced stock loss in the last couple of weeks. Things have improved a lot in the last two weeks.”
Panda Mart has had a turbulent month since its opening in late February this year.
Its grand opening week was marked by an overwhelming turnout with hours of queues, fighting and verbal abuse, vandalism, a police callout, and an early shutdown.
Consumer Affairs Victoria cracked down on the discount store in the second week, warning customers that some goods failed to meet mandatory product safety and information standards.
Energy Safe Victoria hit out in the third week and issued an urgent safety warning to consumers who had purchased table lamps from the store.
Investigations into the matter remain ongoing, and anyone with information that could assist police is urged to contact Crime Stoppers at 1800 333 000 or submit a confidential report online at: crimestoppers.com.au
