{"id":382711,"date":"2026-04-05T05:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T05:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/382711\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T05:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T05:27:12","slug":"dog-drugged-as-armed-raiders-steal-over-e100000-in-vehicles-from-laois-family-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/382711\/","title":{"rendered":"Dog drugged as armed raiders steal over \u20ac100,000 in vehicles from Laois family business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Callous thieves armed with machetes, hatchets and hammers drugged a guard dog and stole over \u20ac100,000 worth of vehicles from a small family owned business in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.leinsterexpress.ie\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Laois<\/a> last night.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The thieves stole an Audi Q7 jeep, an Audi A3, a Ford van, a motocross motorbike, a quad and a Gucci handbag and caused extensive damage during the incident at the yard of Fitz Civils Demolition on Bishopswood Road, Portarlington in the early hours of this morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s understood at least six people were involved in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.leinsterexpress.ie\/section\/728\/crime-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">crime<\/a> which took place between 4.30am and 6.25am.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fionn Fitzpatrick was devastated after the theft at the family business. He said he and his family had been working 100 hour weeks up to Easter and had decided to enjoy the holiday and not work today.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He said the dog, a Dobermann, had been sedated by the thieves and knocked out during the incident, now appeared alright but it still seemed groggy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey were seen coming over the gate with machetes, hatchets, hammers, it\u2019s a good job we didn\u2019t wake up because we\u2019d probably be dead,\u201d said Mr Fitzpatrick.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey took over \u20ac100,000 worth of stuff\u2026we are devastated. We worked so hard to have this stuff,\u201d Mr Fitzpatrick said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Break_in_port2-1775301828764.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\"\/><\/p>\n<p>He explained that the intruders were captured on CCTV and all of them were wearing balaclavas. He said they didn\u2019t take tools or laptops from the office and appeared to be targeting vehicles.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mr Fitzpatrick said the burgers caused extensive damage and kicked in a door and ransacked vans and the office.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey torched all the cameras with a gas torch,\u201d he revealed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/camera_damage-1775301787228.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\"\/><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s believed the burglars made off in the direction of Dublin. Mr Fitzpatrick has appealed to anyone who sees any of the vehicles or is offered them for sale to contact the Garda\u00ed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Garda\u00ed in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.leinsterexpress.ie\/section\/124\/news\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Portlaoise<\/a> can be contacted on 057 867 4100. <\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Callous thieves armed with machetes, hatchets and hammers drugged a guard dog and stole over \u20ac100,000 worth of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,8285,129227,43,103731],"class_list":["post-382711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-laois","tag-laois-crime","tag-news","tag-portarlington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}