A man described by police as a 'prolific offender' was arrested in a stolen truck at the Wembley Mall parking lot and has been charged with several offences.
Sgt. Shane Worth of the Oceanside RCMP reported that at approximately 9:20 a.m. on Jan. 23, Oceanside RCMP received a report of a man falling over in the driver’s seat of a pickup truck at the mall in Parksville.
Upon arrival, frontline officers located the man and a female passenger and determined the truck, a 2016 Ford F-150, had been stolen earlier in the week from an underground parking garage in downtown Parksville. The man was found to be in possession of knives and other property believed to have been stolen during the earlier break in to the underground garage. Both the man and woman were arrested.
The man, 23-year-old Gage Lindberg-Larsen, appeared in court and is charged with two counts of possession of stolen property, one count of possession of stolen identification, and two counts of breach of probation. He remains in custody.
The woman, a 36-year old Oceanside resident, is not facing charges related to the stolen truck, however she is being held in custody on an unrelated arrest warrant.
Two other pickup trucks were stolen in the Oceanside area this week. One truck was stolen from Coombs and the other near Cameron Lake. The truck stolen from Coombs was recovered not far from where it was stolen and the truck stolen from Cameron Lake was recovered from a property in Whiskey Creek. The investigation into these two stolen trucks is ongoing and no arrests have been made in relation to these thefts.
It has been an unusually busy week with stolen trucks in the Oceanside area,
said Worth. Three pickup trucks were reported stolen and fortunately all have been recovered and one suspect was arrested thanks to alert citizens reporting suspicious activity to the police.
