Cash snatched after County Durham car boot sales

A man visiting the sale at Sedgefield racecourse yesterday was approached by another man who asked if he wanted to buy a mobile phone

The victim agreed, went to the suspect’s car and viewed two iphone 7’s and an Apple ProMac laptop. The victim was shown a receipt for the items and checked the IMEI numbers were correct. Believing everything was genuine, he was offered all the items for £800 but explained that he did not have that kind of money and could only get £300 out of a cashpoint in a day

The victim then drove to a nearby Sainsburys, followed by the suspects in their vehicle, a silver coloured Ford Mondeo on a 53 plate

Once at the cash point the victim withdrew £300 and then a further £100 from another account. But as he counted out the cash the suspect snatched the money out of his hand and drove off at speed.

The previous Sunday a similar theft took place with a woman being the victim of two conmen, one of whom is believed to be the man who stole the £400 yesterday.

She did not have to go to a cashpoint, but £500 was snatched and the items not handed over before the suspects made off in a car, on this occasion it was a blue Mazda 6.

The suspects are described as:

1 - white, aged about 30 years of medium build. About 5’8”-5’9” tall with short brown hair and stubble. Wearing a blue coloured zip-up Adidas top

2 – white, about 20 years and of skinny build. About the same height as the other man with short, brown hair. Wearing a matching tracksuit top and bottoms

They were in company with a young child aged about 10 years.

The officer in the case is PC 198 Neil Makepeace, anyone with information is asked to call 101 quoting incident 0209 of June 11, or 0203 of June 4.