{"id":810687,"date":"2026-07-18T19:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T19:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/810687\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T19:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T19:25:10","slug":"2-charged-in-toronto-police-distraction-theft-probe-after-grandmother-child-allegedly-targeted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/810687\/","title":{"rendered":"2 charged in Toronto police distraction theft probe after grandmother, child allegedly targeted"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Toronto police officers say two people are facing charges as part of a distraction theft investigation after a grandmother and her grandchild were allegedly targeted.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tps.ca\/media-centre\/news-releases\/66424\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a statement<\/a> issued by the Toronto Police Service Saturday afternoon, the incident happened on the morning of May 18 near Culford Road and Falstaff Avenue area just south of Highway 401 and west of Keele Street.<\/p>\n<p>Officers said the woman and the child were walking when a man allegedly \u201clured the\u00a0child\u201d\u00a0toward a van while a woman started talking to the child\u2019s grandmother.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe woman distracted the elderly\u00a0victim while the man distracted the child and stole their jewelry,\u201d the statement said, noting the pair took off afterward.<\/p>\n<p>The statement said 41-year-old Toronto residents Constantin Porumbita and Bianca Mitran were charged with robbery as well as participating in\/contributing to a criminal organization.<\/p>\n<p>Officers said Porumbita was scheduled to appear in a Toronto court on June 30 while Mitran was scheduled to appear on July 13.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, investigators said they released photos of the suspects because they believe there could be additional victims. <\/p>\n<p>The allegations haven\u2019t been proven in court.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">News Release \u2013 Man and Woman Arrested in Distraction Theft Investigation, Falstaff Avenue and Culford Road area, Images Released<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/e8g8RmV8oX\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/e8g8RmV8oX<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IKXjcOXpFC\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/IKXjcOXpFC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/TorontoPolice\/status\/2078511033111527827?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">July 18, 2026<\/a> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\tKeep it Factual<\/p>\n<p>Add CityNews Toronto as a trusted source on Google to see more local stories from us.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=toronto.citynews.ca\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"add-trusted-source-badge\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/google-trusted-badge.png\" alt=\"Add as a preferred source on Google\" width=\"198\" height=\"63\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toronto police officers say two people are facing charges as part of a distraction theft investigation after a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-810687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}