Three people have been arrested after Winnipeg police allege they were involved in robbing several victims expecting to meet a woman they’d talked to through online dating sites.<\/p>\n
Between February and August, several people reported incidents that happened after they arranged to meet a 44-year-old woman they’d met online, the Winnipeg Police Service said in a Tuesday news release.<\/p>\n
When the victims went to the prearranged addresses, they were instead robbed at knifepoint by male suspects and held against their will. Personal property was stolen, including wallets and car keys, and the victims’ vehicles were used to go to various businesses and ATMs where fraudulent purchases and withdrawals were made, police said.<\/p>\n
Investigators in the major crimes unit identified several suspects and two residences linked to the robberies: one on Eugenie Street near Youville Street and another on Polson Avenue near McGregor Street, the release said.<\/p>\n
On Aug. 7, investigators arrested the 44-year-old woman and a 51-year-old man, who were charged with offences including seven and eight counts of robbery, respectively, and a number of other charges related to kidnapping, uttering threats and forcible confinement. Both were detained in custody.<\/p>\n
Court records show the woman has one prior conviction for unlawfully being in a dwelling house in 2021. The 51-year-old man has a much longer record for incidents stretching back to 2004, with convictions for offences including forcible confinement, robbery and others related to weapons and drugs.<\/p>\n
A 61-year-old man was also arrested the next day, and is expected to face charges including robbery, forcible confinement and uttering threats. The man, who has not yet been formally charged and was released on an undertaking, is expected to appear in court at a later date, police said.\u00a0He was not named by police.<\/p>\n
Officers believe there may have been more victims who haven’t yet come forward.<\/p>\n
Anyone who believes they or someone they know may have been a victim and wants to speak to an investigator can call the major crimes unit at 204-986-6219, police said. Information can also be submitted anonymously through Crime Stoppers at 204-786-8477 (TIPS) or winnipegcrimestoppers.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three people have been arrested after Winnipeg police allege they were involved in robbing several victims expecting to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,210510,302499,302500,22073,179229],"class_list":["post-871212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-forcible-confinement","tag-online-dating-sites","tag-personal-property","tag-winnipeg","tag-winnipeg-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871212","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=871212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}