Vancouver police confirm 4 extortions linked to city

The extortion crisis has made its way to the City of Vancouver, with the city's police force confirming it's investigating four cases.

There have been four extortion incidents linked to Vancouver over recent months, police have revealed for the first time.

Limited details on the extortions were shared by Deputy Chief Const. Howard Chow last week at the Vancouver Police Board’s first meeting of the year, including that some incidents took place in a different city but involved a victim who lives in Vancouver.

“We’ve had a couple incidents like that,” he said. “And I can tell you that we’re super pleased with where we’ve taken it with the investigative team.”

Police have issued two warrants and made arrests in connection with two of the incidents, are close to doing the same for the others, Chow said.

“We’ll report more as it comes along, but these are significant extortions where we’ve done really good work,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department told CTV News two of the investigations are being conducted in partnership with the Surrey Police Service and B.C.’s Extortion Task Force.

At last week’s meeting, Chow also shared that the department has been asked why it isn’t contributing more to the task force, which was launched in September.

He said Vancouver is providing resources through the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit of B.C.

“We’ve got over 40 people in that area that are working on ... or providing extortion support,” Chow said.

In November, the department held an extortion forum due to the ongoing crisis, which has largely affected Surrey.

At the time, Supt. Phil Heard said Vancouver had not recorded any confirmed extortion cases, but that concern was growing in the city regardless.

“We’ve heard from residents, from businesses,” he said. “Even though we haven’t had an extortion case reported yet in Vancouver, it’s affecting people’s sense of safety and well-being.”