This story has been amended since first posting to provide an update. Scroll down to read the update, posted on March 19, 2018.
Police say they may have put an end to a rash of thefts from marinas on the North Shore with the arrest of a marine mechanic who has allegedly been lifting equipment and flipping it on Craigslist.
Frank Jerry Cutajar, 43, a mechanic from Surrey, is facing a list of charges in connection to the thefts, which took place over several months in at least five different Lower Mainland municipalities including North and West Vancouver.
The charges, including theft, possession of stolen property and fraud, mark the end of a 10-week joint investigation by Vancouver police and the North Shores two police forces.
The crimes came to police attention late last year, when forces around the region started to be inundated with reports of missing outboard motors, fishing equipment and even small boats a haul worth close to $300,000.
In January, members of Vancouvers marine and auto crimes units met with the North Vancouver RCMP and the West Vancouver police to hatch a plan to catch the culprit. Based on clues they had gathered to that point, the investigators singled out Cutajar as a suspect and set up surveillance on him.
When that effort linked Cutajar to a boat and some equipment that had been newly stolen in Delta, the team arrested him. Information gleaned from that encounter led them to an unsuspecting buyer in Richmond who had bought 10 outboard motors and a generator from Cutajar equipment that had allegedly been snatched from boats in Vancouver, West Vancouver, North Vancouver, Delta, Coquitlam, and Surrey.
Armed with that evidence, the detectives got a search warrant for another locker, where they found more property stolen from at least three other victims.
All this time, officers were continuing to tail Cutajar, who had been released on bail after his first arrest. On Feb. 28, they reportedly watched him steal another outboard motor and then sell it hours later on Craigslist.
Cutajar was arrested again two weeks later and charged with another list of crimes related to his alleged escapades. He was eventually released with strict conditions. To date, the team says it has recovered the property of 18 victims. They claim no Vancouver-area marina has reported a similar theft of equipment since their investigation began.
The investigators say they are continuing to follow up in the hopes of laying more charges and recovering more stolen property in the coming weeks.
It seems that every time we let people know about arrests related to stolen property or frauds, we are issuing buyer beware warnings related to online classified websites, said the VPD in a release. If you purchase items online from an unknown source and without doing any due diligence, you may find yourself not only the victim of a crime, but out a significant amount of money, as some of the victims in this case were.
Cutajar has been banned from all marinas and docks in the Lower Mainland pending an appearance in court, said police.
Follow us on Twitter: @NorthShoreNews
Editor's note: Read below for an update to this story.
Some of the charges against Frank Cutajar were later dropped. Other charges in several jurisdictions were combined under a court case heard in Vancouver provincial court in 2012.
Ultimately, Cutajar was convicted on Oct. 12, 2012 on nine of the approximately 40 charges laid. His convictions were for including theft, fraud, possession of stolen property and unauthorized use of credit card data in Abbotsford, Port Coquitlam, Burnaby, Vancouver, Richmond, Delta, Maple Ridge and North Vancouver. The time frame of the offences was between June 2011 and July 2012.
Cutajar was handed a conditional sentence of 21 months, including seven months of house arrest, five months of a curfew, and an order not to consume alcohol or drugs or be found in a licensed establishment for the term of the conditional sentence order.
