Twelve stolen bouncy castles worth in the region of £20,000 have been finally tracked down after being taken in July 2017.
Officers arrested two men on Thursday after the inflatables were taken from an industrial unit in Hucknall three years ago and the owners of the equipment have been checking online selling sites on the hunt for them ever since.
The victims from the Nottinghamshire-based company Marshall Events are delighted to have finally got their stolen equipment back, especially following the initial investigation went cold.
Officers attended Rivergreen, Clifton after a tip-off from the victims, before searching the property and finding four stolen inflatables. A fifth was later recovered Latimer Close in Bulwell, as nine out of the 12 stolen bouncy castles have now been recovered.
Police Constable Jane Gibson led the investigation. She said: “Since the burglary in 2017, the victims have periodically checked selling sites and Facebook to try and recover their stolen items – some of which were bespoke to them.
“They had made their own enquiries and discovered their castles being advertised for hire in the last few weeks after all this time.
“They had started to hire the castles and then build a picture of where their property was being stored.
“Officers attended a pub in Bramcote and waited for two men to return to dismantle two castles hired by the victims.
“On arrival, they were arrested and two castles were seized. They were also aware that another company had innocently purchased two further castles belonging to them which they had also booked them for the pub at a slightly later time. The four castles were identified by the victims as stolen by their unique serial numbers and recovered.
“The victims are clearly delighted to have the majority of their property back and have worked extremely hard on their own to trace the items.
“I’d like to praise both the Clifton and Meadows Neighbourhood Teams who acted swiftly after the tip-off from the victims to prevent the items disappearing again.”
Officers are also appealing to the general public to help trace an outstanding bouncy castle called the Gladiator Joust. Two others are believed to have been sold and may never be recovered.
If anyone has any information please do call 101, quoting incident number 247 of 9 July 2020.
Two men, aged 33 and 34, have been arrested on suspicion of handling stolen goods. They have since been released under investigation as enquiries continue.
