Cook Islands tech entrepreneur Brett Baudinet is disappointed that his recently established business, Smartie, has become a target for vandals.

Police media and strategic advisor Trevor Pitt confirmed that a complaint of wilful damage of the Smartie office was received and the matter was pending.

Smartie is a super app designed to streamline financial transactions and broaden financial access across the South Pacific – serving as a digital payment solution.

Its owner Baudinet says the damage may have happened around 3am yesterday and cost the company around $5000 to $10,000.

CCTV footage shared by Baudinet showed two men on a motorcycle. The passenger got off the bike, carrying what appeared to be a steel rod and repeatedly smashed the front glass doors and windows. Their faces appeared to be covered.

Smartie tech shop in Avarua is alleged to have been vandalised around 3am yesterday. NAHEA TARITA HOPINI/ 25020511/ 25020512.

“Clearly when you see the footage, it shows that they’re just out to do as much damage as possible. I don’t know what the motive is for the attack, but it clearly is just an intention to do as much damage as possible to our premises, because not only did they swing probably 20 times at all of our windows and not just one to break it down, they also targeted the frame of our office as well as if they just want to make as much damage to everything that they could.”

He said this was the first time it has happened, claiming it appears to be targeting his business.

“They clearly had the intention to do as much damage as possible, and not necessarily try to get in the building. It’s a rage I’ve not seen before on this island,” Baudinet said.

He said police have been in and seen the videos.

“I mean, it’s clearly a sad situation of where our youngsters are at … obviously not all of them, but there’s a select few that have some issues and probably some anger problems too.

“But it’s sad that they don’t realise that doing stupid things like this, as much as it hurts people, they’re the ones who are going to hurt most at the end of the day, because the consequences for what they do, especially if they get caught … the reputation that they’re building up for themselves later on in life, it’s just nuts. It’s silly.”
Baudinet says his business is a young, up-and-coming fintech business.

“Smartie is only out here to do good things for the community. So it’s just sad that people clearly are targeting us to do this damage. Not sure why.

“We don’t want this. We don’t need this. And I think it’s evident that everybody kind of wants to come together and do what we can to catch people that do these sorts of things.”
Baudinet says people also need to be thinking from a bigger, broader perspective about what they could be doing to help prevent this.

“Obviously, we all understand that the police are under pressure. They are short staff, so they definitely could use more help.

“For us here at Smartie, we’re all about technology. There’re so many things that you can be doing with technology today to improve security across the island.”
Baudinet added that it would be a good idea to have CCTV cameras around the island so police could easily refer to them if anything happens.