RCMP are looking for suspects that they say are responsible for a string of cross jurisdictional crimes committed in the North Okanagan, Thompson-Nicola, Nicola Valley, and the Central Okanagan.

On Wednesday shortly after 8:00 p.m., officers in Merritt were called to a gas station on Airport Road for a fraud in progress.

Police were told a man was inside the store trying to use counterfeit money. The suspect was connected to a burgundy Dodge Ram D-150 pickup truck, which police found as it fled from the business with multiple people inside.

“The suspect allegedly accelerated towards the responding officer, and sideswiped his fully marked police vehicle before fleeing the area eastbound, not pursued by police,” said Cpl. Jesse O’Donaghey, with the RCMP Southeast District. “The vehicle was then seen heading towards Kelowna.”

Shortly after 10:00 p.m., West Kelowna RCMP were alerted to a hit and run in the parking lot of a Boucherie Road business involving the same suspect vehicle.

“Kelowna RCMP deployed a spike belt on the east end of the William R. Bennett Bridge in an effort to disable the suspect vehicle,” added O’Donaghey. “The driver performed an evasive maneuver, managed to avoid the tire deflation device and drove over the concrete meridian of the highway.”

“A second motorist’s vehicle was struck, as the suspect pulled a u-turn and proceeded back across the bridge span towards West Kelowna.”

This past Monday, the same suspect vehicle was reportedly seen at an incident at a gas station along the Trans-Canada Highway in Kamloops involving counterfeit money. Investigative efforts have determined that the licence plate (B.C. licence plate KK2078) had been stolen from the Armstrong area.

O’Donaghey says there were no injuries in any of these incidents, and he’s asking anyone who spots the burgundy Dodge Ram D-150 pickup to not to approach it or any of its occupants, and to instead call their local police or 911.