The owner of a Żebbuġ stationery shop yesterday confronted two thieves who stole hundreds of euros in goods in the second raid on her business within 24 hours.

“Can you believe it, twice in as many days? This isn’t just bad luck, something is going on here,” she said.

Robbing a place is one thing, going back the next day to do it again is just crazy

Visibly shaken by her close encounter with the two men, the tearful woman said they had stared her down as she caught them red-handed outside her storeroom in an underground garage complex.

Preferring not to be named, the woman told Times of Malta that when the incident happened she was busy restocking the shop, around the corner from the store, after having had hundreds of euros worth of toys and office supplies stolen the previous day. The first theft occurred at noon on Tuesday with the second taking place at roughly the same time yesterday.

In a statement, the police confirmed that thousands of euros in toys and office supplies were stolen over two days from subterranean garages being used as a storage facility by Centre Point Stationery in Vjal il-Ħelsien.

The police said that although the thieves’ identities had not been established it was possible that the same people were behind both incidents.

“How audacious! Robbing a place is one thing, going back the next day to do it again is just crazy,” said a nearby shop owner, who witnessed part of the second robbery.

Resting against the wall of a salon, where she ran to after the incident to frantically call the police, the shop owner recounted that she had seen the thieves’ car reverse to the garage door.

“I asked what they were doing but they shrugged me off. Then they got in the car, asked for directions to Telemike [an electronics’ shop] and drove off as if nothing happened,” she said.

Police officers on the scene said the unidentified men had broken the garage door lock using a screw driver and filled the boot of a station wagon with stock. Sources said the car was later identified as a grey Peugeot with foreign licence plates.

An extensive search for the vehicle proved fruitless.

A witness living across the road said she had also seen the two men’s “steely gaze”.

“My window overlooks the driveway leading to the garages. I saw them coming in and thought something was odd. One of them saw me looking and stared right at me. It was chilling,” she said.