Riverview, N.B., business owner asking for changes after recent theft

It took criminals two minutes and 11 seconds to steal a classic 1991 Chevrolet off of Kevin Campbell’s car lot Thursday morning. The business's AI equipped security system that is monitored by a local company didn’t even slow them down.

“They actually took over the cameras, if you watch my video and they communicated with these thieves and tried to deter them by saying they were calling the police,” Campbell said. “They actually were on the phone with the police in that two minute span, but unfortunately these guys were quicker and got away with a very valuable truck.”

Codiac RCMP confirmed that they received a call at 1:27 a.m. and were at the Campbell’s Auto Sales dealership by 1:36 a.m. The vehicle has not been recovered. Police say it is an ongoing investigation.

Campbell has been in the auto industry for 38 years. He said car theft is “rampant” across the country but he’s noticed an increase in other crime in the city.

On Friday, RCMP reported there were 29,631 criminal occurrences in Moncton, N.B., for 2024 so far. The total occurrences for 2023 were 29,698.

Matthew Cormier is the Design Manager and Chief Security Officer for Centurion Alarm and Lock, a security supplier in Moncton. He said they’ve partnered with construction groups to prevent theft.

“They’ll have electricians in there running wires all week long,” Cormier said. “Suddenly, someone will go in some night at 2 o’clock in the morning and cut all the cables, strip all the copper out and then they have to start from scratch.”

Cormier said raw materials that people can sell for scrap or sell to a third party are the most frequent targets for theft.

“I personally have seen lots of times where a person will get arrested at one site, we’ll catch him … and then we’ll see them on another site only weeks later,” Cormier said. “It’s not a matter of learning lessons, it’s a simple matter of being tougher on crime in my opinion.”

Cormier says Centurion has offered video monitoring for about five years and they’ve had more clients reaching out for support.

“If I had to put a number on the increase, just in the video portion, I’d say probably been at least a 30 per cent increase year over year,” Cormier said.

Kim Wilson is the CEO of the Greater Moncton Chamber of Commerce. She said the business community is frustrated. She said the chamber hears frequent reports of theft and vandalism.

“We are hearing more and more from our members that this is an area of concern that needs to be addressed in our community,” Wilson said. “Our policing costs when you look at the City of Moncton have risen in the last three years by 40 per cent, but we are encouraged by the decisions that were made last year to add additional RCMP officers to our community and we also note that there was a request in the Codiac RCMP policing authority to add more officers next year and beyond.”

Wilson said it’s not an easy problem to fix, but she encouraged businesses and to report crime and asked the community to keep investing in policing.

The chamber represents over 950 members in the tri-communities and Wilson says about 50 per cent of their businesses would be considered small businesses.

Campbell said he hopes someone will recognize the thieves and the truck, which was listed at $28,500, will find its way back to his lot.

“I believe if Monctonians realized what level of crime is happening in our city, they’d be appalled,” Campbell said. He called for policy changes “at the highest level” to address crime.

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