Thieves have taken off with the ten metre high Big Mango from a fruit-growing town in northern Queensland, Australia.
The giant, bright orange replica of the famous Bowen mango is one of Australia's iconic tourist attractions, and was the pride of Bowen, before a team of robbers took off with it under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Monday.
Security cameras appear to have captured the daring heist, in which the three-story painted metal mango was unbolted from the concrete platform on which it had stood since 2002, rolled on to a heavy vehicle and driven off down Queensland's Bruce Highway.
Investigating police have examined tyre marks and received a reported sighting, which suggest the Big Mango is on a large, unmarked mobile crane heading south.
For the last 12 years, the Big Mango had sat towing the Bowen tourist centre, four kilometres out of town.
Although CCTV was installed to protect the tourist office from break-ins, no-one suspected anyone would take off with the orange fruit icon.
'No one in their right mind considered for a second that someone would take a giant three-storey-high, 7-tonne Mango,' Bowen Tourism chairman Paul McLaughlin told The Courier Mail. 'It’s not like it’s something that can be easily hidden.
The Big Mango was the work of local Bowen doctor, Geoff Ingham, who established a Big Mango Trust in the late 1990s to help fund and build it.
The Mango went up in 2002 at a cost of $90,000, 200 per cent over budget.
Mr McLaughlin said he hoped the iconic tourist attraction would be returned unharmed, and with the help of the tyre marks and the security footage, police would soon unmask the thieves.
He said local authorities were analysing the security footage for leads.
Bowen Tourist Information Centre manager Christin Short was the first to notice when he arrived at work this morning – and assumed the Big Mango it must have been removed for repairs.
But a call to Mr McLaughlin confirmed there was no planned maintenance – and an inspection found the mango had indeed been unbolted and stolen.
Motives for the theft remain unclear.
The giant, bright orange replica of the famous Bowen mango is one of Australia's iconic tourist attractions, and was the pride of Bowen, before a team of robbers took off with it under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Monday.
Security cameras appear to have captured the daring heist, in which the three-story painted metal mango was unbolted from the concrete platform on which it had stood since 2002, rolled on to a heavy vehicle and driven off down Queensland's Bruce Highway.
Investigating police have examined tyre marks and received a reported sighting, which suggest the Big Mango is on a large, unmarked mobile crane heading south.
For the last 12 years, the Big Mango had sat towing the Bowen tourist centre, four kilometres out of town.
Although CCTV was installed to protect the tourist office from break-ins, no-one suspected anyone would take off with the orange fruit icon.
'No one in their right mind considered for a second that someone would take a giant three-storey-high, 7-tonne Mango,' Bowen Tourism chairman Paul McLaughlin told The Courier Mail. 'It’s not like it’s something that can be easily hidden.
The Big Mango was the work of local Bowen doctor, Geoff Ingham, who established a Big Mango Trust in the late 1990s to help fund and build it.
The Mango went up in 2002 at a cost of $90,000, 200 per cent over budget.
Mr McLaughlin said he hoped the iconic tourist attraction would be returned unharmed, and with the help of the tyre marks and the security footage, police would soon unmask the thieves.
He said local authorities were analysing the security footage for leads.
Bowen Tourist Information Centre manager Christin Short was the first to notice when he arrived at work this morning – and assumed the Big Mango it must have been removed for repairs.
But a call to Mr McLaughlin confirmed there was no planned maintenance – and an inspection found the mango had indeed been unbolted and stolen.
Motives for the theft remain unclear.
Source : SkyNews , DailyMail
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