A heavy-duty vehicle stolen from a Perimeter Highway business in 2010 has been recovered by RCMP, though unfortunately there's little left of it in decent condition.

One night in December of 2010, a break-in occurred at Leo's Sales and Service Ltd. at the corner of the north Perimeter Highway and Sturgeon Road. The perpetrators hopped the fence and made off with a 2009 CASE IH STX 485 Quadtrac, worth approximately $275,000 at the time. They drove the vehicle right through the fence at the business and off the property, loading the vehicle onto a trailer.

Ryan Grandmont, who works in sales at the business, explains they were able to steal the vehicle because farm equipment like the quadtrac, unlike other motor vehicles, all use the same type of key.

"All the keys in farm machinery, they all fit the same," he says.

"You could get a CASE key out of your garden tractor and it would work in a four wheel drive. That's just the way it's been."

After that, the vehicle appeared to vanish from the face of the earth. At least, until May 31, when it was recovered by Fisher Branch RCMP.

Sgt. Line Karpish with RCMP Media Relations says officers were alerted to the vehicle's location through a Crime Stoppers tip, and they obtained and executed a search warrant. They executed the search over a couple of days, starting May 31.

Whoever had taken the vehicle had apparently excavated a huge hole in a field in the RM of Fisher and driven the quadtrac into it, concealing it beneath the ground and leaving it exposed to the soil, with no protective covering on the vehicle, and there it sat for months and months.