Moment couple behind 10-year instrument crime spree caught stealing £11,000 guitar

As thefts go, the woman caught on CCTV tucking an £11,000 rare guitar inside her fur coat before nonchalantly walking out of a music shop could not have been more brazen. Even as she and her accomplice left Peach Guitars in Colchester they turned to the staff to smile and wave goodbye.

But it has now emerged that the couple is behind a series of thefts of valuable and often rare musical instruments from shops throughout the country and across Europe.

Now the industry body representing music stores is urging police forces to work together to hunt down the pair thought to have evaded capture during a crime spree spanning more than 10 years.

Alan Priest, owner of Peach Guitars in Colchester, said they were “utterly brazen” as they stole the £11,000 PRS Brazilian Mccarty 594 guitar last month.

“She was wearing a thick, black fur coat. I didn’t take any notice because it was a cold day. But from the CCTV you can see there’s a bracket in the coat. According to other music shops who have contacted us they have been doing this for up to 15 years.

“Her accomplice took the security lock off and threw in the back of a guitar amplifier. She just held her coat open and the guitar was fitted straight in. It took no more than a few seconds. They were so relaxed that they even waved goodbye to my staff as they left.”

Will Hubbard, who works at the showroom which has more than 1,300 guitars on display, believes the pair are Eastern European and have targeted shops throughout Europe.

“We were contacted by a shop in Copenhagen who said they were hit for high end guitars by them two years ago,” he said. “The couple think they are untouchable. At our store there were no fingerprints and they ensured they didn’t use our car park so we couldn’t get their car registration number on CCTV.”

Then, on March 3, they were caught on CCTV in Hayes Music Shop in Southampton where two saxophones, a Selmar SA-80 and Yanagisawa S901, worth more than £5,000 were stolen.

Richard Boler, who owns the brass and woodwind specialist shop, said: “They just stare at the CCTV cameras, they don’t care. I think they move the instruments out of the country and sell them.”

Paul McManus, chief executive of Music Industries Association which represents music shops, said: “This is stealing expensive musical instruments to order. We are aware this woman appeared in a number of venues a few years ago. We thought they had gone away. But they’re back. We want police forces to join up the dots and work together.

“We think she was taken to court a few years ago but she got off because she claimed she was not in the country at the time of the offence. I think she’s Romanian.”

Jonathan Myall of Just Flutes in Croydon is convinced that the woman targeted his shop seven years ago stealing his own prized Selma Mk VI saxophone worth more than £6,000.

“When I saw pictures of her stealing the guitar in Essex I immediately thought: ‘My God, I recognise her.’

“She did exactly the same type of theft here seven years ago. She took my tenor saxophone from a display cabinet and put it in her coat - it’s not an easy shaped instrument to conceal - then casually walked out.”

Andy Legg of Absolute Music in Bournemouth added: “They did us along with two other music shops on the south coast eight years ago. I lost a £3,000 guitar. It’s definitely the same couple.”