The side of a highway off-ramp at 3:20 a.m. seemed like a strange time and place to be making a mail delivery.
That thought occurred to West Vancouver police officers in the early hours of Tuesday morning after they came across two men sitting on a concrete barrier on the off-ramp between Highway 1 and Taylor Way. Officers’ suspicions were cemented when they saw a large pile of mail that the men had attempted to conceal behind the barrier.
Most of the mail appeared to be addressed to homes in the lower part of the British Properties, said Const. Jeff Palmer, spokesman for the West Vancouver Police Department.
Further investigation revealed one of the men in possession of banking documents connected to a person at one of the addresses. As officers were at the scene, a third man pulled up in a vehicle.
Officers subsequently discovered more suspected stolen property in that car.
Two men, a 39-year-old North Vancouver man and a 33-year-old Vancouver man, were arrested and taken into custody. A 40-year-old Burnaby man was released on a promise to appear in court.
Palmer said most of the recovered mail appeared to have been taken from mailboxes attached to private homes. “If you’re going away, you should have somebody picking up the mail,” he said.
Thieves can use information gleaned from mailed bank and credit card statements to commit identity theft and fraud, he warned. “It’s a constant thing we’d like people to be aware of.”
