A private mailbox inside a gated community in the Dilworth Mountain area is out of order after being targeted several times by a mail thief.
It has been broken into four times in the past six months, leaving residents wondering what the thief got.
“We don’t know if people had credit card information, banking information, personal information, cheques — could be anything,” resident T.C. Williams said.
Williams says he has gone to the RCMP but is not happy with the immediate results so the residents have taken matters into their own hands and have set up some video surveillance cameras and they’re producing results.
The cameras recently caught a male on video prying open the mailbox.
“This individual was going back and forth to a car parked out here which we believe to be a small SUV,” Williams said.
Williams believes it’s the same SUV that was caught on tape by another video surveillance camera down the road where a male can be seen stealing a Christmas decoration.
Williams suspects that person is the same thief who’s been targeting the mailboxes.
“The crime down the hill was probably associated. The two vehicles appear to be identical,” he said.
Williams says there’s reason to believe that the mailbox thief has been targeting boxes throughout the Okanagan.
“Even Canada Post seems to think that he’s kind of going into a circle all the way from Vernon, across to Merritt, Princeton over to Osoyoos, Oliver and through Penticton and back up to here.”
Meanwhile, to remedy the problem in his neighbourhood, Williams says Canada Post has promised to install a Superbox and the thief will move on.