At approximately 12:15 a.m. local time on Tuesday, emergency services responded to a vehicle fire and ram-raid at the Almondvale Shopping Centre in Livingston, West Lothian. Four unidentified suspects wearing dark clothing and face coverings breached the east side of the facility by reversing a black Nissan Juke through protective bollards and two sets of glass doors.
The perpetrators stole multiple rails of designer clothing from a store inside the complex, loading the stolen merchandise into a secondary vehicle, identified as a white Audi S5. Prior to fleeing the scene, one of the suspects deliberately ignited the Nissan Juke left at the point of entry.
Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service arrived to find the Nissan completely burnt out. Firefighters extinguished the blaze, and authorities confirmed no injuries were reported during the incident.
Investigators subsequently recovered the white Audi S5 on the outskirts of nearby Dechmont. The recovered vehicle contained a portion of the stolen property. Detective Inspector Lee Beaumont is leading the ongoing investigation to locate the four suspects and has issued a public appeal for dashcam and CCTV footage from the surrounding region.