(WXYZ) — A family is reeling after they say their fireworks business was robbed early Wednesday morning in Sterling Heights.
The owners of the Mar’s Fireworks tent, Mariam and Layon Shabo, on the corner of 15 and Mound say they lost about $25,000 worth of inventory when two thieves got into the tent and began hauling boxes and boxes of fireworks out and loading them onto a moving truck.
"It helps us financially. It helped me pay my way through college. I graduated debt free because of this business. So it means a lot to us and we work very hard," Mariam told 7 Action News. "And for someone to just, you know, come here and take what's not theirs from us is kind of disappointing, to be honest."
Surveillance video captured suspects grabbing boxes of fireworks off of wooden slabs. The owners, who are brother and sister, say the suspects then loaded the boxes of expensive fireworks into a U-Haul truck before taking off.
"We've never had anything like this ever happen," said Layon as he loaded new inventory into the tent that they had to bring in to make up for what was stolen.
"They came in here with a purpose to try to resell them," he said because of the volume of fireworks stolen.
The family has reported the incident to the Sterling Heights Police Department.
Anyone with information on the stolen fireworks is urged to contact Sterling Heights Police.
