Halton police allege two people posed as grieving family members to carry out more than 300 thefts at mausoleums and cemeteries across the Greater Toronto Area.

Police say the pair — a man and woman arrested earlier this month — moved through cemeteries in Burlington, Oakville, Toronto and Niagara during daytime hours, slipping into mausoleums and prying open cremation niches to steal jewelry, decorative urns, keepsakes and other valuables. In some cases, cremated remains stored in necklaces and urns were discarded.

“A reprehensible, disrespectful and immoral act,” deputy chief Roger Wilkie said of the alleged dumping of ashes at a news conference Monday. “Let me be absolutely clear: this was not a crime of opportunity. It was premeditated, deliberate and utterly disgraceful.”

The mon

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