By Staff
March 22, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
On January 14th 2017, two male suspects were seen at Costco in Burlington where they began to follow a customer who was observed purchasing several electronic items.
The suspects then followed the customer to Best Buy in Burlington at which time; one of the suspects phoned Best Buy posing as a Fraud Investigator and reported that the customer may be involved in fraudulent activity. Staff at Best Buy began watching this customer while the original two male suspects made several trips in and out of the store while stealing merchandise.
The two male suspects then followed the customer from Best Buy to a Lakeshore Road underground parking lot where the customer left his vehicle unattended with numerous electronic items valued at $3106.00 which had been purchased at Costco and Best Buy.
The suspects then smashed a passenger side window to gain entry into the victim’s vehicle and stole all of the electronics.
Unidentified shop lifter captured on video leaving Best Buy
Police have identified one of the two male suspects as Gerald Daniel BLANCHARD, 45 of Vancouver, British Columbia who also uses the alias of Ricky WHITE. He was arrested and charged with two counts of theft under $5000 and one count of mischief under $5000. He will appear in Milton court on March 29th 2017.
Police have yet to identify the second suspect who is described as a white male in his 40’s with a heavy build wearing blue jeans, white t-shirt with a black jacket and baseball cap.
These thieves had no idea how deep the police coverage is in the high traffic retail locations.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Constable Mark Urie the Burlington Criminal Investigations Bureau – Residential Crime Team @ 905-825-4747 Ext. 2338. Tips can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers “See something, Hear something, Say something” at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), through the web at www.haltoncrimestoppers.ca, or by texting “Tip201” with your message to 274637 (crimes).
The thing that puzzles me is that in this day and age, why is it that so many video surveillance cameras are complete garbage? They don’t look as good, not even close, to my first 2 megapixel camera in 1996. This isn’t some struggling little independent electronics store, this is Best Buy, the biggest electronics store in North America. And this is the best they can do with electronic surveillance equipment? Amazing.