The operator of several daily newspaper stands in Cochrane believes there's a pattern to the way thieves have been pilfering her boxes 

On. Oct. 19, both the Calgary Sun and Calgary Herald newstands were stolen from the front of the No Frills gas bar, 210-5th Ave., at 4.22 a.m. and it was all captured on the gas bar's surveillance camera, including clear images of the thieves.

Exactly one week earlier, during the evening and early morning of Oct. 11-12, she lost two other newsstands, located by the A&W and GoodLife Fitness, and in one case a heavy 3/8" aircraft cable had to be cut to free it from its position.

She says in both cases the Cochrane RCMP did not respond to her calls and it took going to their office with a copy of the surveillance footage on Oct. 23 to get a file number. Frustrated, she now intends to keep in regular contact with the RCMP in hopes of getting action.

The private vendor operates 23 Calgary Sun and 17 Calgary Herald boxes and delivers the daily papers to Cochrane each morning. She didn't lose any boxes last year but the year previous lost about four or six.

Thefts in the Cochrane area are less frequent and she says a vendor in Calgary lost 60 alone in September.

She says the boxes aren't cheap and cost Postmedia about $500 a piece. There's also internal mechanism that costs about $150.

She's out the cost of the papers inside plus any of the money that is in the newsstand.

"It's what puts food in my kids' bellies," she says.

Fortunately, she empties them regularly.

"There's very little money in them because I empty them regularly so I'm hoping that will be enough of a deterrent that they're putting all this work into stealing these boxes to get maybe $10 if they're lucky."

She's hoping the video will help the RCMP locate the bandits, that and a more watchful eye.

"It's incredible that they're that brave. They looked right at the camera, so they knew they were being filmed or if they didn't they were stupid enough to do it right in front of a camera in a well lit area."

In the video, the two men are seen arriving at the gas station. One starts cleaning the lights and at one point both got back in the vehcile, perhaps because a vehcile passed by, but returned to take the boxes; first the Sun box, then the Herald, almost like it was a second thought. Paper towel was used to cover the licence plate before they departed.

You can view the video here.