The Queensland Shooting Supplies store on Brisbane
Street, West Ipswich, which Kurt William Wesener
is accused of raiding in a daring break-in, in 2008.
A RAID in which 55 guns were stolen from an Ipswich business was the biggest firearms heist in Australian criminal history, a court was told yesterday.
In what has been described as a "professional" and well-planned strike, the thieves destroyed the West Ipswich gun store's security systems before breaking in through the roof.
Ipswich District Court was told the thieves cut the Queensland Shooters Supplies' phone lines late on September 22, 2007, disabling a heat-activated security system and destroyed an external alarm before cutting a hole in the tin roof.
The thieves dropped through the roof next to a cabinet full of guns, smashed an internal alarm and security cameras before stealing the cameras' hard drive which contained video footage.
They then stole 55 guns, including revolvers and semi-automatic pistols, shotguns and rifles worth $28,113, $6090 cash from a safe, $1227 worth of ammunition and $442 worth of explosive powder.
Crown Prosecutor Sal Vasta said a store employee who arrived at 8am on September 23 was the first to discover the store had been the "victim of Australia's biggest ever gun heist".
"These are 55 instruments that in the hands of sporting shooters are used legally but in the wrong hands – 55 instruments of mayhem were missing," Mr Vasta said.
Police searched Shane Mundy's Gailes home after allegedly tracing one of the stolen guns back to him two months later to find a Glock pistol on his bedroom floor, which he claimed he had for 10 years.
Mr Vasta said Nike sand shoes found in Mundy's bedroom matched a shoe print found on the roof of the gun shop.
The break-in the case came after two women called Crime Stoppers in February 2008 and claimed they knew who were allegedly involved in the heist; Mundy, also known as "Stainey", and his friend Kurt William Wesener.
Mr Vasta said one of the women, Casey Perrin, would tell the court Wesener used her video rental store card to borrow The Postcard Bandit before the break-in.
He said Wesener took notes during the Australian film based loosely on the life of convicted bank robber Brenden Abbott, which shows him sneaking into a bank via the roof, and shortly after the break-in Wesener allegedly showed Ms Perrin about 30 to 40 guns in his bedroom.
Wesener, 27, and Mundy, 33, pleaded not guilty in court yesterday to a charge of breaking and entering a premises and stealing.
The trial, before Judge Deborah Richards, continues today.
