The pan­dem­ic has been a chal­leng­ing time for busi­ness own­ers Iona Charles and Rob­bie Kat­wa­roo. And the sit­u­a­tion has now been made worse as thieves have stolen more than $100,000 of their tools which they rent to the pub­lic.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Charles said they opened RIK Tool Rental and Re­pair Ser­vices Lim­it­ed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and have been work­ing from Sun­day to Sun­day from 7 am to 6 pm.

She said around 6:45 am on Sat­ur­day, just be­fore they got in­to work, they re­ceived a call from their land­lord that some­one had prised open the door of their busi­ness place at Adesh Dri­ve, Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do,

"When we got here we saw all the new tools and some of the new­er rental tools all gone," Charles said.

Among the tools miss­ing were pres­sure wash­ers, gen­er­a­tors, chain saws, a set of ham­mer drills, plan­ers, heat guns, cut off saws, cir­cu­lar saws and oth­er small­er tools.

"We are still go­ing through to do a full in­ven­to­ry.," she added.

Two San Fernando CID Officers dust for prints at RIK Tool Rentals and Repair Service, Duncan Village, San Fernando.

KRISTIAN DE SILVA

Charles said they found out Sat­ur­day that an­oth­er busi­ness place on the com­pound was al­so bur­glarised two days ago.

"We be­lieve it's some­one who knows what we had here be­cause they did not come and take any­thing from the oth­er side where we keep most of the old rental tools. They on­ly came in­to the side where there are new tools," Charles said.

She said they were hop­ing to in­stall CCTV cam­eras.

She al­so ap­pealed to the thieves to bring back the tools.

"Busi­ness has been chal­leng­ing so we had no choice but to cut back. Now that they have stolen these items, they have set us back. Some of the new tools they stole have not been paid for as yet. We have cred­i­tors that we owe. I would like the per­sons who did this to find it in their hearts to bring back what they stole. It is our rental tool and it's the on­ly way we can have an in­come. Please bring back our tools. We are hon­est hard-work­ing peo­ple and it is not nice to lose every­thing like this," Charles said.

Po­lice said they are pe­rus­ing CCTV footage to find the thieves. San Fer­nan­do Po­lice are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.