While an erstwhile ‘Ali Baba' is in custody, Eastern Waikato Police are still collating the items found in his cave.

A treasure trove of goods worth thousands of dollars and stolen during rural burglaries around Morrinsville and Te Aroha was recovered by police during a raid on a Waitoa address on July 2.

Firearms and a gun safe believed stolen in rural burglaries around Morrinsville and Te Aroha which were recovered during a police raid on a Waitoa property on July 2. Photo: Police

Morrinsville Police acting sergeant Shane Doddrell says they originally went to the Waitoa property seeking a stolen motorbike.

'Instead we recovered a ride on lawn mower, chainsaws, a post hole borer, waterblasters, welders, electrical tools, tool chests, xbox's and games, laptops, flat screen tv's, stolen firearms, gunsafes, cannabis, methamphetamine and cash.

'Such was the haul we had to acquire a tandem axle furniture trailer in order to remove all the recovered property.”

While a man was arrested in relation to the items recovered from his property, the search for others involved continues.

The man was a focus of police inquiries in relation to his receiving of property taken in a spate of rural burglaries in and around Morrinsville and Te Aroha.

It was one of the more successful searches Shane's been involved with since joining police and he expects it will slow down the rate of burglaries in the rural community that have been occurring.

Shane explains that police like to target receivers as this removes a potential market burglars use to off-load stolen property.

'At the same time we work to locate the burglars and the receivers of stolen property there's an important role the public can play to assist us.

'As well as calling police and noting down registration numbers and descriptions of suspicious vehicles and people, property owners can us the SNAP website to record images and serial numbers of their valuables.”

'This is particularly helpful to us in situations like this as we can marry up the data from SNAP provided to us by the victims to items recovered, and prove the person that has them does so illegally.”