Three people, including one employee, are facing possible charges after thousands of dollars-worth of alcohol was stolen from the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch.
According to Vancouver police, the branch contacted the department in mid-April about an internal theft investigation. Detectives from the department’s property crime unit worked with the liquor distribution branch to collect evidence that led to officers searching a Delta home on May 15 where more than $100,000 dollars-worth of alcohol was recovered.
The suspects, two people from Surrey and one from Delta, allegedly stole hundreds of boxes of hard alcohol. Two men were arrested at the home in Delta, and the third, a liquor distribution branch employee, was arrested at work.
The suspects were later released pending further investigation. The employee has been suspended.
Possible charges include theft over $5,000 and possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000.
“This investigation remains active and we are continuing to work with our partners at the LDB to determine if there is evidence of additional offenses,” media relations officer Const. Jason Doucette said in an email.
Viviana Zanocco, communications spokesperson for the LDB, said the branch’s corporate loss prevention team investigates all anomalies.
“That’s how this recent incident came to our attention. The team was made aware of a discrepancy, investigated, looped in Vancouver Police last month, and their joint investigation led to the arrest of the employee on May 14,” Zanocco said.
She said she could not provide any details on the employee other than to say that he worked in the Vancouver distribution centre at Broadway and Rupert Street.
“He has not been charged with anything, so remains suspended,” she added.
Zanocco added that it’s fair to say that nothing like this has ever happened at the liquor distribution branch before.
“We don’t measure or capture figures on theft, we capture data on shrinkage, which is defined as the loss of inventory that can be attributed to factors such as employee theft, shoplifting, administrative error, vendor fraud, damage in transit or in store, and cashier errors that benefit the customer,” she said. “It’s usually recorded as a percentage of total sales and tracked annually so that companies/businesses can determine if their efforts to combat theft/shoplifting/errors are having any impact.”
Zanocco added that in the 2017/18 fiscal year the branch recorded a loss of about $1.637 million on $2.418 billion in sales — a 0.07 per cent shrinkage rate.
With files from Ian Jacques/Delta Optimist
