Around £10,000 worth of cigarettes stolen from Welwyn Garden City store

The raid saw “three possible offenders” break in to the Co-op on Shoplands taking a stash of fags during the early hours of this morning (Thursday).

A worker at the store said: “The alarm went off at about 1am. The burglars must have ripped open the shutter with a claw hammer or something because they’ve broken it.

“They only opened it a bit and then smashed the glass to get in and steel the cigarettes.”

He added: “We haven’t worked out exactly how many were taken yet, but it was loads and loads of cigarettes, probably around £7,000 to £10,000 worth.
“This morning the shutter wouldn’t go up, you could only get in through by crawling in. So we setup a temporary shop to serve customers instead.”