More than $100,000 worth of stolen goods have been recovered, including a diary from 1939, in one of the largest property seizures in Victoria police history.
The two-month investigation centred on an apartment unit at 636 Admirals Rd. in Esquimalt, which was raided by the Crime Reduction Unit and the Emergency Response Team on Oct. 28. Officers found a huge cache of stolen property, stashed in a secret room behind a hidden panel in a bedroom closet, in a shipping container and inside three vehicles, which were seized.
Police also found four guns, heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana and fentanyl pills, with a combined street value of $53,000, and $17,455 in cash.
Officers located a diary from 1939 inside the shipping container and have identified the daughter of the woman who wrote it, said Victoria police spokesman Const. Matt Rutherford.
“After some research, the daughter of the person who wrote the diary was located in Aldergrove, and investigators have arranged to get the diary back to her,” he said.
Investigators found more stolen goods, including clothes, watches, makeup kits and tools, in various storage lockers and are following up on other storage lockers that could yield more items.
It’s believed the thousands of stolen items were obtained through shoplifting, theft from vehicles, and break and enters, said Rutherford.
The shipping container was kept in a parking stall of the apartment building. Photos released by Victoria police show contents piled to the ceiling of the container.
Lorraine Anderson, a 52-year-old Esquimalt woman, was arrested during the raid. She remains in custody charged with unauthorized possession of a firearm, possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking and possession of property obtained by crime.
The Crime Reduction Unit, which targets prolific property criminals, began investigating Anderson, a suspected associate of the Nortenos crime gang, in August.
No one was in the home on Monday, which was empty except for a couch and some personal effects. An eviction notice addressed to Lori Anderson and a notice of inspection were taped to the door.
A neighbour named Craig said on the day of the raid, he was sitting on his porch when a van pulled into the driveway and officers with guns drawn emerged. Police told him to get inside.
He heard officers yell “police, search warrant.” He later saw police search the shipping container.
Craig said people often went in and out of the home in the early morning hours.
Another neighbour, Doug Chipera, said Anderson had been storing some of her mother’s furniture in a storage unit of the apartment but when the basement flooded, she brought in the shipping container.
Chipera said he would visit Anderson in her home occasionally and there was no indication of a massive theft ring.
Anderson is set to appear in court on Dec. 14.
