Four of the five Fender guitars stolen from The Rock and Roll Society of Edmonton over the Easter weekend have been recovered in Calgary.
The instruments were signed by celebrities (musicians and a politician) and were going to be auctioned off to help raise money for the charity’s youth music mentorship program.
Global News learned Wednesday that four of the five guitars were found in Calgary after staff at Sharky’s International Pawn Shop recognized them from the news coverage.
“About an hour later, the guitars walked into the shop — three of the guitars,” the charity’s executive director Todd Crawshaw said on Monday.
“His people were astute enough — they got the guitars into the back, they called the police while another staffer distracted the perpetrator.”
Sharky’s International staff stalled the man for 20 minutes until police arrived.
“We did that by looking up, trying to authenticate signatures, making some jokes with the guy, making him laugh,” Robbie Barrett explained. “About 20 minutes later, a couple of officers walked in and arrested him.”
READ MORE: Autographed guitars stolen from Edmonton youth music charity
Barrett said the man wasn’t acting strangely, but he didn’t seem like a big music fan.
“You could tell he didn’t know anything about the guitars,” he said. “He’s not the collector type. I asked him who the signatures were, who the band members are, he knew nothing. Right there, raised some flags for us.”
Crawshaw said the man was arrested at the pawnshop.
“Now the guitars are in Calgary police custody, as is the perpetrator.”
Crawshaw said police found a fourth guitar in the trunk of the suspect’s vehicle and have a lead on where the fifth one might be.
“They found on the perpetrator a receipt from a different pawn shop, so they believe he was able to successfully unload that guitar.”
Calgary police said they were still working on recovering the last missing guitar.
The instruments themselves are not worth that much, but the autographs make them valuable. The Rock and Roll Society of Edmonton estimated that together, the five guitars could raise about $25,000.
“It’s not a lot of money, but to a charitable society like us, that’s almost a full year of musician and mentor wages,” Crawshaw said on Monday.
He took a call from Sharky’s Tuesday night, informing him of the find.
“It took a provincial community to solve this case,” Crawshaw said. “The perpetrators were unable to sell the guitars in Edmonton; they had to go down to Calgary.”
He credits the news coverage for getting the stolen guitars back to the society.
“This would not have happened without the media coverage Global gave us.
“It’s a happy day and I thank Global very much. I had no idea how far this story was going to travel and it’s a result of the media coverage that we got that ended up getting the guitars back in our possession. I’m dancing.”
An Edmonton man, 24-year-old Abubakar Bakal, has been charged with one count of possession of stolen property over $5,000 and faces six other unrelated charges in connection with outstanding warrants.
The Calgary Police Service is now in contact with the guitar owners to get the instruments back to Edmonton.
Edmonton police are still investigating the break and enter where the guitars were allegedly stolen.
Watch below: Five autographed guitars stolen from The Rock and Roll Society of Edmonton were recovered at a Calgary pawnshop. Vinesh Pratap has the update.
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