Thieves Wanted For Causing $20,000 In Damage To Colton Car Wash Machine For Just $200
COLTON (CBSLA) — The owner of a Colton gas station is offering a reward Tuesday for information on two men who broke into his car wash's cash machine, getting away with $200 by causing about $20,000 in damage.
The heist happened early last Monday at the Iowa Shell station at 2718 S. Iowa Ave. Surveillance cameras captured video of the two men driving up to the bill acceptor, after one of them went inside to pay for a car wash inside the food mart.
Video shows the two men drove a black pickup truck up to the bill acceptor and stayed there for about 30 minutes as one of them used a crowbar to wrench open the bill acceptor. They got away with just $200 – but the bigger loss is the cost of the repair to the machine, which will be more like $20,000, according to the station's manager, Mohammed Khwaja.
"We have a camera everywhere. Every corner we have camera," Khwaja said. But he says he thinks they came at 2 a.m. because only one person is working at that hour.
"That's why I'm thinking they are local," he said.
Khwaja says a police report has been filed in the incident, but he is concerned that these thieves have committed similar crimes in the area before, or will do so again.
The station's owner is offering an unspecified cash reward for information leading to the thieves' identification and arrest.