| Written by CMG Staff on Thursday, 26 August 2010 |
Parking garages hit by thief.
Project Krotch Rocket has landed and
its target has been sent to jail.
A man who stole motorcycles in
Edmonton, Calgary, and Red Deer, Alberta, and later sold them has
been sentenced to five years in prison. Twenty-nine-year-old Samuel Hunter Smith's
sentence was then reduced by 15 months for his guilty plea on 33
counts of possessing stolen property and two counts of theft.
Smith was involved in the theft of at least 33 motorcycles, plus some boats and trailers and a truck, according to the
Edmonton Journal.
Smith and others stole many of the
bikes from underground garages in Edmonton. He ground off the stolen bikes' serial numbers and applied new numbers with
a punch before selling them. According to the Toronto Sun, he targetted sport bikes.
The judge who sentenced him said he had
hurt people who had bought motorcycles from him and later lost them
to police seizure. Smith was said to be part of a large and well-organized crime ring, and had been sentenced about a year earlier for similar crimes.
Project Krotch Rocket was a two-year investigation into stolen motorcycles by RCMP and other police forces.
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