A substantial reward – potentially as much as £33,000 – has been offered in a bid to recover stolen metal detectors used to identify gold nuggets.

The haul of top of the range items, worth more than £330,000, was stolen from the trailer of a heavy goods vehicle parked up overnight in Common Road, Low Moor, Bradford, earlier this month.

Almost 300 boxes of the specialist Minelab GPX 4500 metal detectors, which were being transported from Ireland to Turkey, were stolen in the daring break in.

Today, a spokesman for the Australian insurance company insuring the items revealed it was offering a reward of ten per cent of the insurance value of any metal detectors recovered as a result of information provided to the police.

The spokesman said: “None of the stolen items have as yet been found and we urge anyone with information to contact the police in Bradford.”

The high-value theft took place as the HGV was transporting the metal detectors, owned by County Cork-based company Minelab, from Ireland to Istanbul.

It stopped off in Bradford en route and was parked up overnight, between 8pm on Thursday, January 12, and 8am on Friday the 13th, on the roadside near to the Guide Post Hotel in Common Road, when thieves got into the trailer and carried off the haul. Police believe the raiders used another vehicle.

Minelab is reviewing all aspects of security, including how the product was packaged and its suppliers in the supply chain.

Anyone with information should contact Det Con Haider, on 101, or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.