Looting thieves take off with $50K designer booty

Looters have robbed and wrecked a Brisbane boutique.

CLAIRE Campbell thought this was a time when the people of Brisbane would pull together; when the work she was doing to do help others in the flood emergency around her store in inner-west Rosalie would make a difference.

Then some "bastard" stole in, in the dead of night, and robbed her.

Ms Campbell, 26, could only shake her head yesterday as she surveyed the damage done to her boutique after it was raided on Sunday night, and more than $50,000 worth of designer handbags stolen. "I just thought the police would be hanging around because this was one of the worst affected business areas in the central part of Brisbane," she said.

"At a time like this, when everyone is doing so much to help each other, when there are so many in trouble, you have these bastards who do this. It's unbelievable."

Ms Campbell's shoe and handbag store, Maryon's, which escaped being inundated last week by just 10cm, was not the only target in the upmarket cafe strip in Nash Street, where some shops were submerged up to the roofline last week. Thieves struck the hamburger place across the road, and smashed locks on other shops.

Ms Campbell believes they were looking for money in her shop, but turned to the racks of newly arrived designer handbags.

They had expensive tastes, going straight for the hand-stitched Dolce & Gabbana bags, the Sonia Rykiel's, Givenchy and Emporio Armani, priced at between $500 and $3000 each. All up, they stole 50 bags worth $50,000.

The raid is the latest in a series of looting incidents, which have prompted police to set up a 200-strong taskforce to secure evacuated streets and business premises. A total of 108 police from NSW, Victoria and South Australia were yesterday sworn in as special constables at Queensland Police HQ to patrol flood-hit areas of Brisbane, Ipswich and the western precinct of Goodna.

Police have warned that looting in a time of disaster attracts up to 10 years' jail -- twice the usual penalty for theft.

Police have so far charged 10 people with 18 looting-related offences, and are investigating other raids on flood-bound shops and factories.

Ms Campbell said her shop was vulnerable because the burglar alarm went dead after power was lost last week. It won't be back on for another three weeks, forcing her to send home five staff.

She had assumed police would have regularly patrolled the deserted shops in Nash Street after the floodwaters retreated.

"Everyone said the police were going to be coming through several times a night because they knew we had no security," she said. "Anyway, that didn't happen."