Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

RCMP deploying bait packages to catch parcel thieves

Thanks to an enterprising Prince George RCMP officer, opportunistic thieves may get more than they bargained for if they try to abscond with a parcel from someone's front porch this Christmas. Earlier this year, Cst.
x
Prince George RCMP Cst. Brent Benbow and a selection of the bait packages Mounties have been setting out around the city to catch parcel thieves.

Thanks to an enterprising Prince George RCMP officer, opportunistic thieves may get more than they bargained for if they try to abscond with a parcel from someone's front porch this Christmas.

Earlier this year, Cst. Brent Benbow reached out to Amazon to let the online retailing giant know about the prevalence of the theft of their packages from doorsteps and mail boxes in the city.

In return, Amazon supplied the detachment with parcels holding a little prize inside - a device police use to track the package and the culprit who made off with it.

As of Wednesday, when local Mounties unveiled their new crime-fighting tool, the so-called bait packages had been deployed 50 times around the city, yielding three activations. And one of them led to the arrest of a 37-year-old local man with charges pending.

"We're essentially here to let these porch pirates know that they've had some strong winds behind their sails lately but there are many icebergs ahead and their ships will continue to sink," Benbow said.

He said the packages have been put out all around the city with cooperation from households that have been the victims of such thefts in the past.

"We're trying to let people know that a porch is not a community Christmas tree," Benbow added. "If somebody does take one of these packages, they're not going to be receiving a gift. The only gift they'll get is a ride to our detachment."

Those caught will be sentenced under a charge of theft from mail, a specific offence in the Criminal Code. The maximum punishment is 10 years in prison if the Crown proceeds by indictment and six months in jail and a $5,000 fine if the Crown proceeds by summary conviction.

Prince George RCMP Supt. Shaun Wright called Benbow's initiative an excellent example "outside the box thinking" by the detachment's members in the name of putting a dent in property crime.

"Really, our end goal is deterrence," Wright said. "If somebody sees a package in Prince George on a doorstep or a bike downtown, we want them to think it's a bait package, it's a bait bike, it's not yours."

A similar program has been operating in New York but Prince George RCMP is the first detachment in Canada to take up the partnership, Benbow said.

Bait packages aren't the only way thieves are being caught. RCMP showed a video of a man carrying a shovel and knocking on doors, purportedly to ask homeowners if they wanted their driveways shoveled.

When there was no answer at this one particular house, and after he looked around to see if there were any security cameras spying on him, he lifted a package out of the home's mailbox and left.

Little did Ronald Dale Collins know that the house was equipped with a doorbell camera. He was subsequently sentenced to 224 days in jail and one year probation for the Jan. 13, 2017 offence.