Andrew Raven
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 30/04) - Yellowknife police have broken a crime ring that they blame for more than 60 per cent of recent break and enters in the city.

About a dozen suspects have been charged with stealing everything from computers to artwork to frozen beef and trading the loot for crack cocaine.

RCMP Sgt. Steve McVarnock poses with stolen merchandise recovered from a downtown apartment. Police say a group of roughly a dozen drug addicts were part of a crime ring that traded the loot for crack cocaine. - NNSL file photo

Police believe a second tier of suspects then sold the stolen items on Yellowknife's black market.

"It wasn't what you typically call organized crime, but there was a certain degree of organization," said RCMP Sgt. Steve McVarnock.

Police have linked the ring to a third of the 70 break and enters committed in Yellowknife between November of 2003 and January of this year.

Investigators and forensic experts are still poring over crime scene evidence. McVarnock expects members of the ring will be charged in another third of the break and enters.

"This investigation was a priority for us," McVarnock said Wednesday.

"Speaking from experience, break and enters can often be extremely traumatizing. Often victims don't feel safe in their homes any more."

Police began to suspect a loosely-organized crime ring might be operating in the city in mid-January.

Investigators were looking into a string of break and enters and a home invasion on Gitzel Street when they noticed what McVarnock described as "commonalities."

With that evidence in hand, officers began a surveillance operation that eventually resulted in the execution of eight search warrants within a 72-hour period.

One search -- at the downtown Ravenscourt Apartments -- turned up a cache of more than 100 stolen items including computers, art prints and carvings.

The total value of the merchandise was in the "tens of thousands" of dollars McVarnock said.

"We lucked out," said McVarnock of discovering the cache. "Normally, stolen items would not be left in the same place for a long time."

Most of the loot was destined for Yellowknife's black market, McVarnock said. There was no evidence it was being shipped south -- a possible indication of a larger organization.

The amount of crack cocaine doled out to ring members depended on the value of the goods they stole, said McVarnock.

That's probably why electronics and artwork -- both lightweight and valuable -- were among the most popular items found in the cache.

During an interview with Yellowknifer earlier this month, James Brydon -- a defence lawyer and the acting head of Legal Aid -- talked about the mindset behind crack cocaine related crime.

"A lot of crack addicts look to make a quick buck so they can get their next hoot," said Brydon.

"That's why you see so many break and enters. Addicts are interested in counterbalancing the likelihood of getting caught with the potential return. All they care about is getting high."

Suspect in court

One of the men involved in the theft ring, Christopher Abel, plead guilty in court Wednesday to six separate break and enters.

He was sentenced to 17 months in jail.

Abel, 20, admitted to stealing nearly $10,000 worth of property between December of last year until mid-March to feed his crack habit.

His haul included a digital camera, a gold necklace and "half a cow" in frozen meat stolen from a family shed.

"You have to wonder what's happening to Yellowknife," territorial court Chief Judge Michel Bourassa mused during Abel's sentencing hearing.

"Crackhouses. crack-related murders. Non-stop thievery. It's not the town it was."

McVarnock, who is the acting commanding officer of the Yellowknife RCMP detachment, said crack cocaine has become a serious problem in Yellowknife over the last several years.

"When I was here in the mid 1990s, you didn't see the same level of crime related to crack cocaine," he said.