A Port Coquitlam city worker found a destroyed bank machine Friday, suspected of being the one stolen from a Pitt Meadows hotel.
Police at the scene in an industrial area of the city could not immediately confirm whether the machine was the one stolen from the Pitt Meadows Ramada inn Thursday morning, but Coquitlam RCMP spokesperson Const. Kristina Biro told The Tri-City News late Friday that forensic investigators had examined the ATM and contacted its suspected owner.
"Tomorrow there's a property representative coming to identify it," Biro said. "It's unconfirmed at this point because the investigation is still ongoing but it likely is the same machine."
Judy Millard found the ATM lying in four pieces in a ditch off the corner of Kebet Way and Kingsway in Port Coquitlam just after 10 a.m. Friday, she said.
Fresh tire tracks were seen in the mud between the roadway and where the machine had apparently been dumped.
The bank machine had been stripped of its cash, an RCMP officer at the scene confirmed.
"Even if the money was in it, I wouldn't have known because I wasn't touching it," Millard said.
Millard told The News that she heard about the ATM stolen the day before from the Pitt Meadows hotel and immediately suspected that she had found the missing machine.
"I called my foreman and he immediately called the police," she said.
Two men reportedly walked into the Pitt Meadows Ramada Inn at around 2 a.m. Thursday, picked up the 300-pound bank machine and hoisted it into a white pickup truck, according to police.
The Ridge Meadows RCMP told The Tri-City News Friday afternoon that they had not yet been contacted by Mounties in Coquitlam regarding the recovered ATM.
A spokesperson for the hotel could not be reached for comment Friday.
Anyone with any information is asked to call Ridge Meadows RCMP at 604-463-6251. To remain anonymous, call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or leave a tip online at www.bccrimestoppers.com.
tcoyne@tricitynews.com