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Global News
30-05-2025
- Politics
- Global News
B.C. launches $5M public safety program to crack down on street crime
The B.C. government has unveiled $5 million in new funding for an initiative to crack down on property crime and street disorder. The province says the new Community Safety and Targeted Enforcement (C-STEP) program will give police more tools to respond to street crimes, including shoplifting, theft and property damage. Minister of State for Community Safety and Integrated Services Terry Yung, a former Vancouver police officer, said the program was a result of listening to communities and police around the province. 1:49 Vancouver police hosts forum on retail crime 'We heard loud and clear what they wanted, and street-level crime such as theft, robbery, undermining businesses and making it sometimes untenable for them to be around. For so long it has been going on and this is not acceptable,' he said. Story continues below advertisement The initiative comes as concerns about street crime and disorder make headlines around the province. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Earlier this week, the City of Williams Lake said it was considering declaring a state of emergency to deal with the problem, while residents of Nanaimo have staged repeated rallies over what they say is spiralling public disorder. Retailers have also reported upticks in violent shoplifting incidents, with London Drugs recently saying it was considering shuttering its location on the edge of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The program is being administered by the RCMP, which opened to funding applications from police agencies around the province two weeks ago. 1:50 Williams Lake considers state of emergency over crime, disorder The province says C-STEP funding will be available to support increased police patrols targeting street crime like open drug use and trafficking, disturbances and public intoxication, and to work with businesses and social services on co-ordinated plans to pre-emptively address street disorder. Story continues below advertisement 'We are not going to be prescriptive in where the funding is going to go, We want the police agencies to come up with operational plans, requests, and expect a matrix to find out where this money is going to address the most pressing challenges facing them on the street level,' Yung said. He said the program will supplement the existing Specialized Investigation and Targeted Enforcement, which targets repeat violent offenders. The program is being welcomed by business groups and the B.C. Association of Chiefs of Police. 1:49 Maple Ridge safety concerns following baseball bat assault 'This initiative reflects a clear recognition of the urgent public-safety challenges facing downtown cores, including the growing impact of non-violent and repeat offenders on small businesses,' said Jane Talbot, president and CEO of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association. 'Any step forward is important, and we see this as a significant and encouraging move in the right direction.' Story continues below advertisement Asked if the money would be enough to tackle property crime across the province, Yung described the $5 million as a 'beginning investment.' He added that the province continues to advocate for 'meaningful bail reforms' promised by Prime Minister Mark Carney's new Liberal government.
CBC
10-04-2025
- CBC
Surrey, B.C., resident arrested as part of global cybercrime investigation
RCMP in B.C. announced Wednesday that a Surrey resident has been arrested as part of a global cybersecurity crackdown. Police say the person they arrested operated a network of thousands of infected computers capable of delivering malware — malicious software which could steal personal data or mine cryptocurrency. It's part of a global crackdown on cybercriminals, led by the European Union's police agency Europol, called "Operation Endgame." The operation saw multiple arrests in partnership with Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and the U.S. While RCMP have released little information about the B.C. arrest, a cybersecurity expert says the recent crackdown comes after a significant operation last May that saw the bust of a large cybercrime ring, which had compromised hundreds of thousands of computers. "The [individual] that was arrested here in B.C. appears to have been a customer purchasing access to those compromised computers, and to me that's important," said Chester Wisniewski, the director and field chief information security officer for Vancouver-based company Sophos. Wisniewski said that, historically, law enforcement tends to go after the kingpins at the top of cybercrime operations and not lower-level criminals who do not organize operations. "This arrest here in B.C. in particular ... kind of sends a message to the customers that you're not off the hook either," the cybersecurity expert told CBC News. Europol said in a statement that it tracked down those who paid to get into the compromised computers, which were used for webcam access, deploying ransomware and mining cryptocurrency. Wisniewski said that it was the first major cybercrime operation that he had heard of in B.C in a long time. "We have to increase the friction to make these crimes more difficult," he said. "And certainly, wondering if the police are going to knock on the door at any moment is a good deterrent." The cybersecurity expert said that cybercrime has increasingly been broken down into a marketplace, where some hackers gain access to computers and then other hackers buy those computers to install malware. "Very few people have the technical skills to do an attack from the very beginning and write their own viruses and malware for computers and carry it all the way on through to the money laundering at the end," he said. "It requires a chain of criminals working together in order to conduct these large-scale attacks that cause so much damage." The B.C. government, B.C. Libraries Co-operative, First Nations Health Authority and retailer London Drugs were among the organizations that suffered cyberattacks last year in the province. London Drugs confirms details of ransomware attack 11 months ago Duration 9:51 Roger Gale, industrial network cybersecurity program head at BCIT, discusses the implications of the London Drugs ransomware attack that the company says may have compromised some employee information. The retail chain closed its 79 stores for a week due to the attack.
