It’s the season of giving, but it can also be the season of stealing.
That’s why Manitoba RCMP are warning residents about porch pirates and rural mailbox theft over the holiday season.
“It’s a crime of opportunity, that’s what they’re looking for,” Manitoba RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Paul Manaigre said.
“They don’t have to look very hard to see if there’s an item, they just have to run up and grab it.”
Officers say they’ve seen recent incidents of rural mailbox thefts in areas like La Broquerie and Headingley.
“As you get closer to Winnipeg you might have these vandals and thieves who are coming out of Winnipeg and going to the remote locations because it’s easier for them to commit these crimes and get back into the city,” Manaigre said.
The thefts have some businesses, like Harvester Outdoors in Selkirk, creating safe drop programs for residents to pick up their packages.
“There’s a lot of people, especially rural communities around Selkirk, that can’t even get delivery, let alone people stealing things off their porch, which we’ve seen is at an epidemic these days,” Johnston told Global News.
“We’ve got a ton of room for storage and it’s an easy place for people to pick it up and drop stuff off.”
He says the majority of people using his safe drop program have experienced some form of package theft.
“There’s a lot of horror stories when you start getting people through the door picking up their own packages,” Johnston said. “Most of them have had something taken previously and that’s why they’re here.”
Johnston added that people can use the service at no extra cost, but are asked to make a donation to the Our Daily Bread soup kitchen in Selkirk.
Other community organizations, like the Sturgeon Heights Community Centre in Winnipeg, are also offering a safe drop program.
“It’s just something safe. A lot of people are concerned about packages going missing and we just want to make sure that everything’s safe,” Sturgeon Heights Community Centre facility manager Barry Chambers said.
Chambers said residents just need to contact the community centre in advance to let them know they’re having a package dropped off. The service is also free of charge, but people are asked to make a donation to the non-profit centre.
RCMP also say they also don’t believe that everyone is reporting these types of thefts.
“We’re not actually sure if people who have been victimized are actually reporting it to police,” Manaigre said.
“If you feel your item is missing or your mailbox has even been tampered with, we’d like that information to see if we have a concern with an area that’s been targeted.
“The more information we have, the better answers we can come up with.”