Alberta RCMP looking for suspects after robbery and multiple thefts

The investigations are taking place in several jurisdictions

A crime spree that started in early April now involves at least 8 communities across the province. 

"They range from Central Alberta to Southern Alberta. All the thefts kind of revolve around the same idea of one or two suspects entering either a laundromat or a hotel some place where there's a device that distributes change to patrons. Once entering the establishment, they try to access the change machine and steal actually quite a large amount of change," explained Cpl. Troy Savinkoff.  

Savinkoff said police believe the same suspects are also responsible for a robbery at the Western Budget Motel in Ponoka, where an employee attempting to restrain the thieves was assaulted. "That's a much more significant offense because of that violence," he added. 

Savinkoff said every effort is being made to identify, locate and arrest these individuals. 

"What we have seen in the surveillance obtained at this point is an elderly gentleman, seems to be pretty consistent in all these different crimes and then he's accompanied by individual. That second individual has changed from potentially a younger person to a female."

In addition RCMP are speaking with Calgary police who are investigating multiple incidents in that city which appear to share similarities to the crimes Mounties are currently looking into.