Ram-raiders plough Land Rover into Tidal Vape in Totton before stealing goods worth £20,000

Ram-raiders smashed their way into a vape shop in the early hours yesterday (Sunday) before stealing goods worth £20,000.

CCTV footage shows a Land Rover plough into the glass doors of Tidal Vape in Rumbridge Street, Totton, at 3.20am.

Two balaclava-clad figures then run through the shattered doors before sweeping the shelves of goods which they put into two large building rubble bags.

After just a few minutes the thieves make off with what the owner of the store said was around £20,000 worth of goods.

The CCTV footage was shared to the store’s Facebook page with a message reporting the incident.

It said: "We regret to inform you that our Totton store will be closed for the upcoming week due to a recent car accident involving our premises. The most important thing is that everyone is safe and well.

“Rest assured, we are working tirelessly to repair the store and minimise any inconvenience to you. In the meantime, please continue to shop online at Tidal Vape or visit any of our other open locations in the area.”

A later message joked: “Looks like our vape flavours are so irresistible even thieves can’t resist.

“Visit our other stores and find out why our vapes are steal-worthy!”

The CEO of the company which owns the Tidal Vape store told the BBC the gang had made off with products, mainly disposable vapes, worth thousands and that the damage to the store will cost thousands more to repair.

Ben Richardson said he had been called by the company monitoring security systems to tell him that there was a raid in progress.

Mr Richardson said he arrived at the store to find police already there.

He added: "They [the burglars] pulled up at the store on the T-junction. One of them got out with a tonne bag and the other reversed straight into the shop.

"It's hard when you see something like that. We've had quite a lot of simple robberies at other stores but seeing something like that was eye-opening.

"It's shocking but more annoying than anything else. I've now got to replace a whole shop front."

Mr Richardson said the offenders mainly targeted disposable vapes but also took liquid and coils.

"The stock value is around the £20,000 mark. Shop front damaged, business closed.”

A spokesperson for Hampshire police said: “We are investigating a report of a burglary at Tidal Vapes in Totton, which happened around 3.20am yesterday morning.

“It was reported a large quantity of vape items was stolen from inside the store. Officers attended and enquiries are ongoing.”