It’s “quite likely” some of the stolen goods recovered after a bust in Port Coquitlam belong to people in Burnaby, according to police.
Coquitlam RCMP arrested a 52-year-old Port Coquitlam man last November after a joint investigation with West Vancouver Police into a break-and-enter in that city.
Multiple search warrants related to the case turned up hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal property and money, according to Coquitlam RCMP.
So much stolen property was recovered, Mounties have launched a webpage in the hopes of connecting more of it to its rightful owners.
“The truth is, we don’t even know where it’s all come from,” Cpl. Michael McLaughlin told the NOW. “There was a lot of material there. We have already linked this suspect to multiple files around the entire Metro Vancouver region, centred out of Port Coquitlam and stretching to West Van and even to Calgary, so it is quite likely that some of these are Burnaby residences.”
McLaughlin said Coquitlam RCMP had two goals in launching the webpage of stolen goods.
“One is obviously to get some of these really nice items back to people who care about them – who actually own them – and the other is to see if we can do that to establish more charges,” McLaughlin said.
Michael Horyn of Port Coquitlam currently faces eight counts of breaking and entering and is scheduled for trial in August and September of 2020 at New Westminster Supreme Court.
Police are asking anyone who was a victim of a break-and-enter in Metro Vancouver or Calgary between 2018 and 2019 to check the new Coquitlam RCMP webpage.
“If you see something that you recognize, you will be asked to provide specific details that only the rightful owner would know,” stated an RCMP press release.
The release also noted it would be an offence for someone to try to claim items that didn’t belong to them, and charges would be laid if anyone was caught doing that.
