A particularly brazen donation box theft was caught on video, and police are searching for the man who pulled it off.
Security footage of the crime was released today but the incident occurred last month at a highway rest stop in Vaughan, Ont. The suspect is described as an unshaven white male around 25 to 30 years old.
In the first scene of the video, the suspect is seen inspecting the box and the wire securing it to the counter. After a short while, he meanders out of frame. Then the suspect returns, attempting to cut the wire with handheld cutters. Unsuccessful, he again walks away.
The final scene shows the suspect returning to the counter, fishing a giant pair of red-handled bolt cutters, detaching the box without much trouble and stuffing it in his bag. He takes a quick look around before leaving the rest stop.
York Regional Police say the box contained "a large quantity of cash" and are asking the public to help identify the suspect. The money was meant for HMSHost Foundation, a poverty-fighting nonprofit headquartered in Maryland.
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As organizations across the country continue to collect cash for veterans in honour of Remembrance Day, box snatchers have been out in full force.
Investigators in New Westminster, B.C. are also looking for suspects after a boldfaced, caught-on-video robbery left the local Royal Canadian Legion chapter with an empty donation tin. In Nanaimo, police are raising flags about a serial poppy thief after five donation cans were lifted from various businesses.
Similar incidents have occurred in Scarborough, Ont., Pickering, Ont., Tisdale, Sask., Coquitlam, B.C. and Kitchener, Ont, among others.
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