Here's one for the books...

[Frank Olson <use_the_email_links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thief hidden in box used glass cutter in 200 robberies:

Toronto police have charged three people in connection with elaborate
break-ins targeting fast-food operations.

Police say the trio are suspects in more than 200 robberies across the
GTA that involved the culprits using high-tech surveillance and a
low-tech tool: a cardboard box.

Since November 2006, fast-food restaurants from Toronto to Waterloo were
targeted, with the thieves sneaking inside, bypassing alarm systems and
making off with lots of cash, police said.

Insp. Brian Smollet of the Toronto Police Service said the criminals
used highly sophisticated surveillance equipment and glass-cutting
tools. But the genius behind the break-ins was the gang's low-tech tool:
a large cardboard box.

Police say the thieves would simply prop the three-sided cardboard box
against the front door of the business they were targeting. Anyone
walking by would never have known anything was amiss. Little did they
know there was a thief inside the box, cutting his way through the glass
in the front door.

"You know they would cut out the glass, slide in, and sometimes they
wouldn't even stand up until they got to where they wanted to go," said
Smollet.

"They would slither along the floor in case there was motion sensors.
They would get to where they wanted to go, stand up, take what they need
and back out. And by the time they set the alarm off, if they did set if
off, if they didn't happen to defeat that alarm, they'd be long gone.

"The concealment, I mean, no one would think someone would be hiding in
a box," said Smollet.

Police say more than $250,000 has been recovered.

The investigation took more than a year and involved police from five
jurisdictions around Toronto.

Police have charged Gordon Michael Edwards, 27, Jason Richard Phillips,
25, and Donna Hofscheier, 23, all of Toronto, with 355 charges in
connection with the break-ins.