#53: VERY OLD FRIENDS 🧙

👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨 DATING - BC man wanted for swindling ladies on dating apps

📉 ECONOMY - “Everything is free!” shout masked anti-capitalists while storming Montreal bakery

🚓 CRIME - Guelph man arrested for breaking into woman’s bedroom in search of old ‘friend’

“No, thank you!” said Bilbo Baggins on his 111th birthday. 

“We don’t want any more visitors, well-wishers, or distant relations!”

“And what about very old friends?” Gandalf replied.

A similar scene unfolded in a Guelph bedroom this week when a woman awoke in the dead of night to find a strange man looming over her.

He was apparently looking for an old friend.

More on that below.

Happy Friday.

-Peter

⌛️ Today’s read is 1.2 minutes long.

A warrant has been issued for a B.C. man previously convicted of swindling women he met on dating apps.

Brodie Brooks pleaded guilty last year to defrauding 14 victims—mostly women—of around $90,000 in total, according to Greater Victoria Crime Stoppers.

Brooks was arrested back in 2023 after several Vancouver Island women accused him of borrowing money and promising to pay it back, but then ghosting them once they requested repayment.

“This person was highly manipulative and deceptive in his scheme,” said Const. Markus Anastasiades at the time of his arrest.

Brooks is now wanted for breaching his bail conditions, namely that he “keep the peace and be of good behaviour,” according to the Saanich Police Department.

Brooks is MIA, but a man identifying himself as Brooks reportedly contacted CTV News and said he was at a work camp outside of the province—with the approval of his probation officer, of course.

“Brooks” said he was earning money to “pay back” his lady friends as ordered by the courts, and that he would not be returning to B.C. earlier than planned.

He claimed police know of his whereabouts.

“I do not intend to provide further information or engage directly with police,” he told CTV. “I am exercising my right to remain silent with them, and any communication can be directed through legal counsel if police wish to speak with me.”

Police contend they do not know where Brooks is. They politely request that he return to B.C. as soon as possible.

A group of masked “anti-capitalists” stormed a Montreal bakery last week in broad daylight, grabbed bags of goodies, and left without paying.

“Everything is free!” shouted the masked men as they robbed Mamie Clafoutis. “Vive l’anarchie!”

They also wrote “free bread” and “capitalist store” on the windows.

The bakery owners are shocked and appalled. They posted surveillance camera footage of the robbery on their Instagram page.

“We are all surprised what people can do,” co-owner Joseph Sabatier told CTV News. “They are angry about capitalism, or what they said, but first they have to maybe learn more about our system.”

An anonymous anti-capitalist group is claiming responsibility for the robbery.

In a statement online, the group said they carried out the robbery as an act of “total rejection of the encroaching gaze of surveillance and the false gods of capitalism.”

They claim the bakery chain uses surveillance technology such as facial recognition.

No arrests were made after the robbery.

“There was no altercation, no violence,” said a Montreal police spokesman. “It was done really calmly, but unfortunately, a lot of goods from the owner was stolen from there.”

_{Source: CTV News}

A Guelph man was arrested Tuesday after breaking into a woman’s house and entering her bedroom in search of an old “friend.”

The woman, who lives on the north side of Guelph, says she awoke just before 1:30 AM upon hearing someone enter her room.

She turned and saw a man in the doorway. She yelled and he fled.

Police arrived a short time later and arrested a man they found lingering in the area.

The man told police he was “looking for a former friend he hasn’t seen in years.”

The 43-year-old Guelph man is charged with one count of unlawfully being in a dwelling place and two counts of breaching a probation order.

He was held for a bail hearing.