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'Senseless act of vandalism' blamed for weekend internet outage: NWT RCMP

Brendan Burke/NNSL photoRCMP vehicle

After Northwestel confirmed over the weekend that RCMP were investigating damage to fibre infrastructure, which caused widespread internet outages throughout the city on Saturday, police are saying the act was "criminal."

"Police believe the criminal act occurred on July 13, 2019, between the hours 7 p.m. and 7:45 a.m., near Highway 3 between Yellowknife and Behchoko," states a news release issued by Mounties Tuesday afternoon.

The outages, which affected Yellowknife, Whati and Behchoko – disrupting long distance phone service, cellphone messaging, landline use and internet services – proved to be untimely.

The outages coincided with Folk on the Rocks, and with an influx of festival-goers in town, many businesses were forced to offer cash-only services as debit and card systems were unavailable.

Northwestel was able to restore the services by Saturday evening.

"We take threats to our critical infrastructure very seriously," stated Sgt. Dean Riou of the NWT RCMP.

"This senseless vandalism had far-reaching implications which affected the safety and comfort of the majority of NWT residents. It is in everyone's best interest to provide any information which could lead to police identifying the person or persons responsible," stated Riou, adding "We encourage anyone with information to come forward to your local police, or call Crime Stoppers if you wish to remain anonymous."

Despite RCMP's belief that "vandalism" and criminality played a role in the outages, police have not yet indicated why they believe the incident is criminal is nature, and the investigation remains active.

Anyone with information related to this "suspicious activity" is asked to call Yellowknife RCMP at 669-1111, contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 nwtnutips.com, (click on "submit a web tip") or text: “nwtnutips” plus your message to 274637.

More to come.