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August 15, 2017 - 3:57 PM
WEST KELOWNA - Theft from vehicles in West Kelowna has risen 47 per cent from last year.
“RCMP in West Kelowna have noticed a dramatic increase in reports received of theft from vehicles,” Cpl. Jesse O’Donaghey says in a media release. “There have been a total of 175 police files in 2017 related to theft from motor vehicles generated between Jan. 1 and July 31.”
During the same time period last year police had a total of 119 theft from vehicle related files.
Although the majority of the thefts occurred in West Kelowna’s downtown core, there have been reported incidents all over the city.
“In at least one case, the suspect stole the victim's drivers license, birth certificate, credit cards, SIN card and even their passport, which not only opens up that person to being further victimized through identity theft and fraud, but also poses significant challenges for them to obtain replacement forms of identification,” O’Donaghey says.
However, despite previous warnings, the RCMP say they continue to find that most of the thefts were to unlocked vehicles, with valuables in plain sight.
A West Kelowna RCMP Crime Map shows a total of 50 theft from auto reports to police during the period of June 26, 2017 to Aug. 6, 2017.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/RCMP
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