Vintage liquor heist could be one of a string

Burglars who stole around $250,000 of top-quality wine and spirits from the Victoria Park Glengarry Wine store may be responsible for several break-ins, police say.

The first was at Liquorland in Parnell on Sunday, May 10.

"They were quite sophisticated. They cut the telephone line and they created, basically, a muffler for the alarm from polystyrene so it wouldn't wake up the neighbours," said owner Phillip Ashworth.

"They cleaned out all the French champagnes and all the top-end spirits."

Around $250,000 of stock was taken and $5000 worth of damage done.

The second burglary was attempted on Monday evening.

Fine Wines general operations manager Richard Poole said a staff member had confronted a man after he appeared to be "casing the place out".

At 7.45pm, the Cook St building was broken into and alarm sensors smashed. Fortunately the alarms were still triggered and as the building was "a bit of a maze" the burglars did not appear to have made it to the store.

Later that night the Glengarry store was hit. The burglars, who wore high-visibility vests and floppy fishing hats, were spotted during the evening, hanging around Sale St by a white van. At 10.30pm they cut the phone lines to the store.

Two hours later they broke into the shop and began loading the van with high-end products including a magnum bottle of Dom Perignon covered in white gold valued at $14,000 and a magnum of French red wine worth $11,000.

Sergeant Jane Galilee, of the Auckland burglary squad, said police were looking into whether one group was responsible for all three burglaries but it was early days.

She called for anyone who had seen the men or white van on Monday night to contact police.

- NZPA