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WEDNESDAY JULY 29, 2015
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Rampant mailbox theft plagues region Canada Post won’t reveal details about crime problem Tyler OLSEN
PIONEER HONOURED
Abbotsford News
Thieves struck a major community mailbox hub in Abbotsford twice last week and have hit more than two dozen locations in Mission over the past two months. But Canada Post won’t reveal the full scope of the theft problem. Last Wednesday, Janay Froese arrived at her local community mailbox (CMB) at McMillan and Old Yale roads to find more than a dozen boxes opened. Two days later, she returned to find even more boxes had been entered at the site, which hosts more than 500 such units. “None of these were ripped off,” she said Friday, as she surveyed the damage. “This is all new.” The doors of some boxes were sheared off, while others had the locks ripped out. Unopened mail remained behind in at least two of the opened boxes. A contractor for Canada Post arrived just after Froese. He had been called to repair 13 boxes, and was surprised that more had been breached. A quick count showed a total of 31 boxes had been opened. Earlier this year, Abbotsford Police reported the region had 23 separate incidents in January and February. Const. Ian MacDonald did not have data on mail crime trends since then, but he said thefts seem to be down from two years ago, when the Lower Mainland was found to have the most mail crime in the nation. “That said, the magnitude of the theft is enormous,” he said, noting that stolen
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85¢ TYLER OLSEN Abbotsford News
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This community mailbox is among dozens in Abbotsford and Mission damaged by thieves stealing mail.
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