A thief smashed the front window of a British Columbia hobby shop early Tuesday, stealing about $30,000 (US) in merchandise.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police say it happened at Player’s Choice Sports Cards in downtown Kelowna a little before 2 AM.
The investigation revealed a lone suspect who used a hammer to gain entry to the shop. He was inside for only about two minutes.
The store is still compiling a list of stolen items. One of the confirmed pieces of note is a signed and numbered Wayne Gretzky Indianapolis Racers signed replica jersey. Numbered 29/250, the jerseys were part of an Upper Deck Authenticated signing and is worth several thousand dollars.
Rookie cards of Gretzky, Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby and several boxes of both sports and gaming cards were also taken by the burglar, who targeted mostly hockey items.
“A theft like this causes immense financial harm to a small local business in our community and the RCMP is going to use every investigational tool possible to find and arrest those responsible,” said Cst. Mike Della-Paolera, media relations officer with the Kelowna RCMP.
The suspect smashed more windows on his way out of the shop, which was also hit for $7,000 in merchandise by a smash and grab thief in November and has had windows broken by juveniles who didn’t steal anything. Owner Jason Wobshall told a local newspaper that the theft comes just days before the shop was to move out of the downtown area because of crime concerns.
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