Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Jan 09/02) - RCMP are continuing to battle an outbreak of criminal activity spearheaded by young offenders.

The officer in charge of the Rankin detachment, Sgt. Tom Kasdorf, says two groups of young offenders are suspected of being responsible for a rash of break and enters to plague the hamlet during the past few months.

A number of the youthful criminals have also been charged with passing forged money in connection with the counterfeit $100 bills that surfaced in the hamlet about three weeks ago.

"Our investigation into the counterfeit $100 bills is still ongoing," says Kasdorf. "We've laid several charges against young offenders and we expect to lay several more."

To date, about 12 phoney $100 bills have been recovered from four separate businesses.

Kasdorf says the bills are of a good quality for being printed locally.

However, the anti-counterfeit holograms on real currency cannot be reproduced and should be spotted fairly easily by people who handle money regularly.

"If you take a good look at the bill, you're going to know right away it's counterfeit," he says. "Even if the print quality is high, if it doesn't have the proper hologram you know it's bogus."

With only three members on duty during the holidays, the Rankin RCMP also had to deal with a number of safe attacks.

Kasdorf says adults are suspected in the safe heists.

He says while the safe attacks are troublesome in their own right, repeat actions by young offenders are causing deeper concerns.

"It's frustrating when you've dealt with the same young offenders in the past. Now they've moved up to break-ins and uttering counterfeit notes," he says.

"It always seems to be the same two little groups of young offenders and it's disturbing to see them staying involved in this type of behaviour."