Vancouver police crack down on stolen goods being resold online

Article content

A two-block stretch of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside bustled Thursday afternoon with rows of sidewalk sellers hawking non-prescription medication, electronics, food and designer clothes on blankets and folding tables.

A pair of Adidas runners, with the original $130 price tag still attached, were being sold for $60. Other items, including wireless speakers that were priced at $35, were not in their original packaging.

Article content

The makeshift market on East Hastings between Carrall and Main streets was the centre of a months-long Vancouver police investigation that resulted in the arrest of five people and the seizure of more than $650,000 in cash, drugs and property.

Inspectors Mario Mastropieri and Mike Kim on Thursday showed a room stacked with seized goods. Everything from baby formula, designer clothes, liquor, electronics, beauty products, tools and kitchen appliances were in dozens of boxes.

“Our work confirmed that fencing operations are fuelling an underground economy of shoplifting and that some criminals are making thousands of dollars a week for buying and selling stolen merchandise,” said Mastropieri.

“What they’re doing is taking the stolen merchandise back to their homes, gaining it from multiple sellers, and selling it on E-marketplaces like Facebook, Craigslist and Kijiji,” said Kim, who is in charge of Vancouver police’s identity theft and anti-fencing unit.

“There are also some criminal groups that will steal, pack up those goods and put them on containers that get shipped off to other countries.”

Article content

Article content

Mastropieri said the criminal networks have recruited “desperate and drug-addicted Downtown Eastside residents to steal from stores,” paying them pennies on the dollar and then living comfortably off the avails of the goods they resell for big profits.

Beginning in March, investigators said a man and a woman in their 60s were seen on East Hastings buying stolen property they traced back to a home in Strathcona where police discovered a large stash of stolen goods worth an estimated $150,000 and seized $155,000 in cash.

The pair were arrested for possession of stolen property and are currently on bail pending a court appearance.

In April, another couple — a man in his 40s and a woman in her 50s — were seen buying stolen goods from the DTES sidewalks that were taken to two homes in the Kensington-Cedar Cottage and the Hastings-Sunrise areas of East Vancouver, according to investigators.

Police found and seized $233,000 in stolen toiletries, electronics, vitamins, alcohol and other goods, along with two vehicles that were believed to have been used to store and transport the merchandise once purchased from sidewalk sellers. The pair were arrested and face numerous criminal charges for possession of stolen property.

Article content

Last month, investigators searched a Nanaimo Street home near Trout Lake Park after they said a 52-year-old woman was seen buying stolen property in the Downtown Eastside.

At the house, police found and seized an estimated $107,000 in stolen goods, approximately $10,000 in fentanyl and cocaine, and a car. The woman was arrested and is now facing charges of possession of stolen property, as well as possible drug charges.

The arrests were part of the department’s Project Barcode, which since February 2023 has sought to crack down on shoplifting in Vancouver. So far, it has amounted to 1,200 arrests and the recovery of $1.4 million in stolen property.

But Sgt. Steve Addison said the department continues to work to stop an ongoing cycle of “chronic shoplifting” happening in the city.

“During COVID and coming out of the pandemic, we saw an increase in not just theft from retailers, but violent thefts — people using weapons, things like needles, knives, various tools, physical force — whatever they could to overcome resistance when they were attempting to shoplift,” said Addison.

Article content

Rui Rodrigues with the Retail Council of Canada said retailers’ biggest concerns are the increase in shoplifters’ use of violence and weapons.

“Compared to 2019 and before, I might hear once or twice (yearly) about weapons being utilized in a retail incident but we (now) hear about that daily, sometimes multiple times,” Rodrigues said.

Tony Hunt, general manager of loss prevention for London Drugs, said both Vancouver business owners, some of whom have since closed up shop, and front-line workers they employ have been impacted negatively.

“We are having to invest millions and millions of dollars to try and cope with the societal pressure and this buildup of crime we’ve seen over the last four to five years. Frankly, more needs to be done,” Hunt said.

“This is impacting real people. Our daughters, sons, sisters, cousins and wives who go in and shop in retail every day, or work in retail — they need our support.”

sgrochowski@postmedia.com

Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add VancouverSun.com and TheProvince.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.

You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber: For just $14 a month, you can get unlimited access to The Vancouver Sun, The Province, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Vancouver Sun | The Province.

Article content