Nireaha Pirika had just got his ute back after it was allegedly stolen in a major burglary at the papakāinga development where he lives.
Within hours, it was stolen again.
The Ngāti Uenukukopako leader got the ute back on Tuesday, but stepped outside on Wednesday morning to find it gone again.
“I was shattered. I thought, ‘You’ve got to be joking’.”
The papakāinga near Rotorua Airport was struck by what was thought to be a gang of burglars at the end of November.
Thirteen of the 15 homes being built to help struggling families were damaged.
After that incident, the iwi trust installed CCTV cameras around the papakāinga.
Footage captured at 4.35am on Wednesday showed a hooded person sneaking into the development site next to Rotokawa School on Te Ngae Rd. The person entered Pirika’s white, four-door Toyota Hilux ute using a key - which Pirika assumed had been stolen during the burglary weeks earlier.
Pirika, who is the Ngāti Uenukukopako Iwi Trust chairman, lives at the development site in an older home at the front of the land where the homes are being built.
Overnight on November 28, thieves allegedly broke into his home while he slept and stole several items, including two laptops with 10 years’ worth of iwi history stored on them that hadn’t been backed up elsewhere.
They allegedly stole his ute, a large 10-seater boat used by the trust to take hundreds of school children to Mokoia Island as part of an education partnership, and damaged 13 homes as they ripped open windows to get inside. Other items missing included hardware and pre-packed appliances such as ovens, dishwashers and toilets.
All told, thousands of dollars worth of items were gone, leaving iwi members and elders reeling.
The papakāinga homes were to be finished by January, and are earmarked for hapū descendants with children who are living in emergency housing or cramped and rough conditions. The development is a multimillion-dollar partnership with Kāinga Ora, but the burglary means it will be at least another two months before the homes can be lived in while windows and doors are fixed.
The boat and Pirika’s ute were found a couple of days after they were allegedly stolen.
Pirika said he had only got his ute back from police on Tuesday. It had a smashed windscreen, and he had booked it in to get fixed on Wednesday.
While he desperately wanted his ute back - again - he said the laptops were precious and irreplaceable items.
He said the trust managed to get through a recent annual general meeting without the information, but it was heartbreaking knowing years of work and research the hapū had done over issues like Lake Rotorua water quality and the Kaituna River was gone.
It had taken hours to regain other information that had been sent in emails, and the process was a headache they did not need, he said.
Police told the Rotorua Daily Post a 29-year-old man had been arrested relating to the initial alleged theft of the ute, trailer and boat, but despite recovering more stolen property on December 9, no further arrests had been made relating to the burglaries.
The 29-year-old appeared in the Rotorua District Court yesterday and applied for bail, but it was declined. He is to reappear in court on January 18 at 10am.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police on 105 or Crime Stoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111, referencing file number 221129/3106.
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