VANCOUVER — A Vancouver Island man is expected to appear in a North Vancouver courtroom to face charges related to the thefts of at least four boats and one car.
Sunshine Coast RCMP Const. Harrison Mohr says the thefts began on the island and continued across Georgia Strait over a five-day period ending Sunday.
He says the crime wave began on June 29, when a 25-year-old man allegedly stole a five-metre fibreglass boat from the Cobble Hill area of Vancouver Island.
Over the next several days, the suspect was seen in Cowichan Bay, Sechelt, Gibsons, Keats Island and Bowen Island, where he was arrested Sunday after a nearly six-metre Campion Explorer crashed onto the rocky shore.
Mohr says that along with the Campion, the fibreglass vessel and a car stolen in Sechelt, the man is suspected of stealing two Boston Whalers, both over six metres long and one of them crammed with stolen goods.
The suspect was injured in the crash that ended the robberies, and Mohr says the man was treated in hospital but returned to cells in North Vancouver to await a bail hearing.