3 charged after months-long rash of porch piracy in Transcona area
Packages taken from homes, business between mid-August and early December, police say
Three people have been charged after a more than four-month-long crime spree involving packages stolen from the outside of homes and a business in northeast Winnipeg, police say.
Police say they first got reports of an increase in the theft of delivery packages in the Transcona area last November.
Those reports led to an investigation dubbed Project Thrifties, which found nine instances where packages were taken between August 2024 and early January 2025, police said in a Friday news release. With the exception of a November theft from a Harvard Avenue address, all were in the Transcona area.
The packages ranged in estimated value from $10 to $200, police say.
A 35-year-old woman from Winnipeg now faces several charges, including seven counts of theft under $5,000 and failing to show up to court. Police believe she was involved in seven of the package thefts from homes between August and December.
A 47-year-old man and another 35-year-old woman were also charged with theft under $5,000 in connection with separate incidents involving packages stolen from outside a home and a business in early December and early January.
The three people arrested know each other through the drug subculture, according to police, who allege they're linked to retail theft, along with the parcel thefts.
They did not know the people whose packages they stole, police say. No one was injured during the thefts.
Police also say a "problem residence" on Larche Crescent in northeast Winnipeg was also shut down as a result of the police investigation. The people charged in the porch thefts regularly visited the home, according to police.
'We're not 100 per cent safe': theft victim
Jesse Carlson, who lives in the area, says a package containing a present was stolen from outside his home just a few days before Christmas last year. Home surveillance footage showed the box was replaced with a ripped one, he said.
Carlson believes the theft was connected with the incidents police reported Friday.
"I'm very happy with how this situation was handled," he told CBC News.
While the theft hasn't stopped his family from ordering packages online, Carlson says it did make them feel uneasy, and they've started to take precautions.
"You don't really think about it until it actually affects you," he said. "It definitely makes you sit back and sometimes think that we're not 100 per cent safe."
Winnipeg police are asking any porch piracy victims, regardless of where they are in the city, to contact them.
"Investigators believe that there could be more out there, and we encourage members of the public to report them, so we can investigate them," Const. Pat Saydak said at a Friday news conference.
Police are also reminding the public to avoid parcel theft by using alternative delivery locations, asking for signature confirmation, signing up for delivery alerts and avoiding visible deliveries, or considering safe pickup options when ordering products online.
With files from Felisha Adam