Calgary Police have made several arrests in connection with the break-in at Tailgate Mercantile Co. back in March.

Owner and Operator of Tailgate, Robyn Alford, noticed some of her merchandise for sale on Kijiji and immediately reported the ads to the police.

Alford says the criminals in question made it pretty easy for her to identify the stolen merchandise.

"They literally took pictures of my label, which is very unique because this is the only shop, and there's no other shop called Tailgate Mercantile Company. It was pretty specific to me and it was like they were proudly showing how much I originally was selling it for and the bargain price they were offering on Kijiji."

She says Calgary Police had to be careful, as these kinds of sellers can be wary of these kinds of operations.

"They said that these types of people are career criminals, so they kind of get suspicious quite easily when it comes to their Kijiji ad. Once they met up with the seller, they saw the item with my tag on it. Of course, it was an undercover operation so they didn't do anything at that point in time, but that allowed them to secure a search warrant, and the following day they executed the search warrant and made several arrests."

She wonders why they would take the risk of openly displaying the logos in the pictures.

"Is it brazen of them to post these things or is it stupid? I've had some conversations with a friend who works for the government and she said that because our law system is so overloaded, some of these guys who commit a minor crime like a break & enter as opposed to a violent crime, they're often the ones who get let out. That's why I wonder if it's brazen, because they know they can just do that; there are very little consequences for them."

Robyn says she's very pleased to have seen results from both RCMP and CPS, and was even given some of the stolen merchandise back, though none of it will return to shelves due to the presence of glass shards, visible grime, and the general discomfort of knowing it has been handled by criminals.

She believes around $5000 worth of merchandise was stolen, and has had an estimated $2000 worth returned by police, though none of it will be able to be sold.

Though the arrests have provided some closure for Robyn, she is still waiting for results from her insurance company, and she was left with a somewhat cynical view of the justice system.

 

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