Durrant Pate/ Contributor

A 40-year-old resident of Brampton in Canada, Varinder Dhillon, has been arrested and charged with stealing a trailer loaded with relief material worth over US$1 million meant for victims of Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica.

Although Dhillon of Punjabi origin was arrested on March 11 after the police executed a search warrant at a residence in Brampton, the charges and details were only made public by Canada’s Peel Regional Police yesterday.

Investigators recovered more than US$1 million worth of stolen property during the probe. The recovered relief material was returned to the rightful owners and has since been shipped to Kingston for distribution among those affected by the hurricane.

The Peel Regional Police reports that on December 3, 2025, around 5.10 am, the suspect broke into a secured storage facility near Derry Road East and Goreway Drive in Mississauga. 

Using a transport truck, he hitched a trailer containing a shipping container filled with clothing, non-perishable food items, and other essential relief supplies and fled the area.

Following an extensive investigation by the Commercial Auto Crime Bureau, Dhillon was identified as the accused. He is already on probation for similar offences and has been prohibited from driving indefinitely.