They were all in the kitchen when they were burgled. The dog did not even bark and they only noticed thieves had stealthily entered the master bedroom and stolen their jewellery three hours after they had left.
The feeling of having been “watched over” is probably the most unsettling for Sarah Zammit Tabona, whose San Pawl Tat-Tarġa bungalow was the target of a recent spate of burglaries in one week, cleanly executed in the space of 30 minutes as the thieves made a bee line for the right room in the large villa at the right time.
“They had done their homework,” Zammit Tabona said about the robbers’ apparent awareness of the layout of her home and her family’s schedule and movements.
A party of seven on that cold and rainy evening, they were all gathered in the kitchen, where the mother of four would normally be at that time – completely oblivious to the invasion of their privacy elsewhere in the home.
The lights were on in the living area, while the far end, where her bedroom is located, was in the dark. One of her daughters had just left the garden, where she was playing with her dogs. And then the thieves stepped in.
“Were they watching,” Zammit Tabona has asked herself.
Who had been observing her? She has been left wondering whether the perpetrators used drones, Google Earth or accessed Planning Authority plans.
'A false sense of security'
CCTV footage from neighbours showed two men break in at 6.45pm and run away with the plunder half an hour later. Part of the house touches a construction site and an empty field and that was the “blind spot” of the otherwise secured property, said Zammit Tabona.
The building site had unattended ladders – they noticed after – which could easily have been propped against her boundary wall. The thieves entered from the field, using a ladder, she pointed out, calling for more secure construction sites.
“We enjoyed a false sense of security,” Zammit Tabona said in hindsight about a neighbourhood that felt safe, with other important buildings in the same road.
But the thieves, possibly a “professional gang that are long gone”, struck specifically when the house was occupied, taking advantage of the fact that alarm systems would not have been activated.
They managed to open an aperture that had no handle or hinge on the outside and appeared solid and fixed. The windows, tightly shut, were only slightly damaged – “barely a scratch”.
And they specifically entered the one room where any jewellery would be kept.
They accessed the house over the wall close to the children’s rooms, yet, they made their way directly into her dressing room further along, Zammit Tabona noted.
It was an “in-and-out job” with no ransacking and rummaging around their belongings.
Two drawers were surgically removed, one placed in the adjoining bathroom and the other taken outside. But they were not damaged either and the thieves knew exactly what they wanted – they were only after items of value, leaving behind any pieces that were not.
Zammit Tabona has tried to put the ordeal behind her, grateful that her husband and children were not in that part of the house at the time and did not run into the thieves.
“It could have been a different story – one I do not bear to think about – if they had walked in on them,” she acknowledged, adding that jewellery, while having deep sentimental value, could be replaced, unlike her family members.
“It is not the first time my daughter would be dressing to go out at that time. She would have been right there. And my husband had come to chat with our kids at the kitchen table, rather than going straight for a shower on his return home…”
When he went to his bedroom later in the evening, he asked his wife why she had opened the drawers in the dressing room.
“We just looked at each other and twigged,” she recounted.
'You go into shock'
They immediately ran back to the room, where she had left her rings by the door, having been home all day, and noticed they were gone.
“You go into shock and cannot believe what you are seeing,” she said.
The next reaction was to call the police, who did a thorough check of the premises to be sure the thieves were no longer there.
While she is not one to panic and get overwhelmed, and intends to “bounce back”, Zammit Tabona admits to being disturbed by a drone flying over the area yesterday. It was not the first time and the police have been notified.
“It was buzzing over our house,” she said, having checked whether it was from any of the neighbours to put her mind at rest.
“I wonder why they targeted us,” she said about being a low-key person. “Who would have been eyeing me and my belongings in the run-up to the robbery?
“You should feel safe in your own home,” she said.
And she is not alone in expressing this sentiment.
A neighbourhood WhatsApp group chat for San Pawl Tat-Tarġa has doubled in five days, showing the residents’ concern and their willingness to “look out for each other” and help wherever they can.
This was the positive side – the community stepping up to have each other’s back, Zammit Tabona said.
Things have changed in Malta, considered to be a safe place back in the day, she and other residents noted.
“We need more street cameras. They would have given us a better picture or acted as a deterrent.
“Gone are the days of leaving the main door open in Malta and only shutting the antiporta. We need to wake up,” Zammit Tabona warned.
“We need to be alert and take note when an alarm is triggered and not just assume someone has forgotten to turn it off.”
The police had confirmed reports of thefts from private houses caught on camera, received between February 22 and 28 in the Swieqi, Mosta, San Ġwann, Naxxar and Mellieħa areas.
They said they have since increased surveillance across all localities and not just the affected towns.
The idea was to “ensure high visibility to provide reassurance and peace of mind to residents”, a police spokesperson had said.
Malta was among the five countries most affected by organised criminal gangs that carry out thefts and burglaries, according to a Europol report released last year.
The gangs were largely made up of Croatians, Georgians, Italians and Romanians and were mafia-like in operation, the agency said.