Phoney towing busted

A police officer parked at the corner of St. John’s and Brunswick boulevards last Thursday night noticed a flat bed truck carrying a snow-covered car pass by at about 10:35 p.m. The officer proceeded to follow the truck to take down the license plate numbers of the vehicles, but couldn’t because they were both covered with snow.

He signalled the truck’s driver to pull over. The driver told the officer he was doing a towing operation and gave a receipt to the officer that had the name of the car’s owner on it. However, the officer proceeded to remove the snow covering the license plate, and realized it did not correspond with the customer information on the receipt.

The officer called the owner of the vehicle — a green 1991 Honda Accord —to verify if the towing operation had been requested, and the owner responded that it wasn’t. The officer then proceeded to arrest the truck driver – a 50-year-old-man – for vehicle theft.