Eight Hundred Thousand Dollars of New Tools, Four Hundred and Eighty-Five Thousand in Cash, and a Judge Freezing a $1.2-Million House: the SPVM Publishes Two Separate Shoplifting-and-Resale Networks in a Single Release (September 2, 2026)

MONTRÉAL — The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal put two unrelated investigations into a single communiqué on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, and the reason it could is that both ran the same play. Crews walked into big-box renovation centres and hardware stores during opening hours, took new power tools off the shelf in a group, walked out without paying, stored the goods inside houses and apartments, and sold them through online classified-advertisement platforms. Between them the two networks are alleged to have taken close to $800,000 in merchandise across the greater Montréal region over recent months.

What separates this file from an ordinary shoplifting sweep is where the SPVM went after the arrests. Judges have ordered a $1.2-million residence in Kirkland, a $500,000 residence in Laval, two vehicles and a set of bank accounts blocked. The seizures the force is publishing are not just tools; they are $485,000 in cash and the property the cash is alleged to have bought.

Five Months Between the Arrests and the Announcement

The Villeray and Laval searches happened on the first two days of April. The three men named in this release were before a judge in Montréal on April 2. The SPVM said nothing publicly about any of it for five months.

The Kirkland search was executed on July 22. The court order freezing that suspect’s house, vehicles and accounts came on August 26. The announcement came a week after the freeze.

That sequencing is the tell. The force did not publish when it made arrests; it published once the money side of both files had been locked down and the second one had reached the prosecutors’ desk. Restraint orders under the proceeds-of-crime provisions are obtained without notice for a reason, and announcing an investigation before the order is granted gives a target time to move assets. The chronology here reads as a deliberate hold.

What the Commander Said, and What He Did Not

Commander Éric Lafontaine, who heads the Section ACCES et produits de la criminalité, is the only officer quoted. He describes the two networks as distinct but says their modus operandi was similar: thieves arriving in a group at big-box stores during opening hours to commit shoplifting, fleeing without paying, concealing the merchandise inside residences, and reselling it online through classified-advertisement platforms.

He also frames the harm in consumer terms, arguing that the cost of retail theft is eventually passed to shoppers through higher prices, and the release closes with advice to be wary of items listed as new below market value and to conduct exchanges in monitored safe-exchange zones.

What the release does not do is attach either network to a name. No criminal organization is identified, no affiliation is asserted, and no link between the two networks is claimed beyond the shared method. This briefing does not supply one.

The Part That Is Not in the Release

There is no count of how many thefts, how many stores, or which retailers were hit. There is no number of people involved in either crew beyond the four suspects mentioned. There is no occurrence or file number for either investigation. The Kirkland suspect and the fourth suspect in the Laval file are both described only by age. No court date is given for the three named accused beyond their April 2 appearance, and no plea or bail outcome is published.

None of the allegations has been tested in court.