{"id":35912,"date":"2025-02-27T17:26:55","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T22:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=35912"},"modified":"2025-02-27T17:26:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T22:26:57","slug":"project-dusk-charges-20-in-break-and-enters-amid-crime-tourism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/project-dusk-charges-20-in-break-and-enters-amid-crime-tourism\/","title":{"rendered":"Project Dusk charges 20 in break-and-enters amid crime “tourism”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Natalia doesn\u2019t know if she will ever feel safe again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People keep telling her and her family that things will feel better in time after falling victim to a break-and-enter last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For them, it wasn\u2019t about the material goods that were taken, but what was taken for them emotionally \u2013 their security, their comfort, their piece of mind \u2013 and irreplaceable memories of their husband and father who left this world much too soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalia shared her story with the media last week as the York Regional Police announced the results of Project Dusk at their Aurora headquarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launched in October 2024 with a focus on residential break-ins, the Project concluded at the end of January and resulted in 20 individuals facing more than 230 criminal offences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YRP Deputy Chief Alvaro Almeida said many of those charged were part of criminal organizations in South America and Eastern Europe who come to this country on carrying out these robberies in the darker fall and winter days, before heading home in the spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery single one of these individuals arrived in York Region from outside the borders of Canada,\u201d he said. \u201cWe believe the sole purpose for coming here was to commit crime for profit. The suspects worked in groups to target homes in York Region and throughout the Greater Toronto Area where they use a variety of tools and techniques to break into people\u2019s homes, taking items of both monetary and sentimental value to their owners: jewellery, handbags, electronics, clothing, cash, among other things. Many of these items are irrepealable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThankfully, I am thrilled to announce that this investigation has not only helped destruct these criminal groups in our communities, but has also led to the return of many of those items taken from their rightful owners. So far, tens of thousands of dollars\u2019 worth of valuables are now back in the rightful hands of their owners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As residential break-and-enters are categorized as property crimes, they\u2019re often \u201cdiscounted as some of the less important, less serious\u201d crimes \u2013 but \u201cresidents who have been victim of these crimes, how they feel about the acts, they will tell you that they feel violated, shattered, shaken, and in many cases, walking into homes that have been ransacked, windows smashed, doors kicked, priceless sentimental items gone,\u201d Almeida continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are experience that have long-lasting effects and have an impact on these victims. The supreme court of Canada has affirmed that the sanctity of a home is deeply rooted in our society, recognizing that a home is a place where Canadians should be afforded the highest expectation of privacy and security. A break in is more than a criminal act, it\u2019s a violation \u2013 a personal violation that shatters the person\u2019s sense of safety and security and invades\u2026the place you should feel most protected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of that, however, is lost to Natalia and her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at the podium about her widowed mother, Natalia said she is a woman who \u201cworked incredibly hard to provide a safe and lovely home for me and my sister,\u201d following their father\u2019s sudden loss.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When that \u201csafe and lovely home\u201d was violated, Natalia said the pain she saw within her mother was \u201cunbearable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[My mother] had left for exactly one hour to get her tires changed. One hour. That\u2019s all it took,\u201d she said.  \u201cWe\u2019re almost always home and work from home most of the days and when my mom is working I am usually home. It was a rare time she left and this happened.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She returned home as the crime was underway, but decided at the very last minute to drive past to fill up her car with gas before going home and calling it a night. Had she decided to save the gas run for the morning, she would have caught herself in a dangerous situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one truly understands this part,\u201d said Natalia of the process of determining what was taken in a situation like this. \u201cYou don\u2019t just make a list and move on; you stare at what\u2019s left, trying to piece together what\u2019s missing while your heart races.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps the most heart-breaking items that were ultimately missing were her mother\u2019s engagement ring, her parent\u2019s wedding bands, and irreplaceable mementos of the father who died when she was just nine-months-old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven though the police work so hard on our case, following every lead and even more door to door, I felt I couldn\u2019t just sit around and watch my mom break down. I needed to do something, so I also went door to door asking neighbours for camera footage. I stayed up all night watching the same clips over and over again, and waking up the next day and knocking on doors again,\u201d said Natalia. \u201cFor me, it wasn\u2019t just about gathering evidence; it was the only thing keeping me [from going] insane. The days all blended together. We didn\u2019t feel safe in our own home anymore. If this was just about stolen electronics it would be very different: it\u2019s about stolen memories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, the importance of having that neighbourhood camera footage can\u2019t be understated, said Almeida, in both preventing property crimes but ensuring families like Natalia\u2019s can find peace again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGet to know your neighbours,\u201d he said. \u201cCommunities that stick together are much safer when you know who is coming and going within your community and you\u2019re that much better\u2026 you have a much better chance of being able to detect when suspicious behaviour\u2019s ongoing in your own community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRegister [your camera on the] YRP Security Camera registry. I can tell you that investigators rely on the resourcefulness of our local residents and home security footage is very valuable for us both from the homes of the victims and those of our neighbours who have helped us successfully identify those and bring them before justice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natalia doesn\u2019t know if she will ever feel safe again. People keep telling her and her family that things will feel better in time after falling victim to a break-and-enter last year. For them, it wasn\u2019t about the material goods that were taken, but what was taken for them emotionally \u2013 their security, their comfort, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35912","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9le","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-14 09:06:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35913,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35912\/revisions\/35913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}