Vancouver police deliver one of the best headlines of the year

It must be tough cooking up original headlines on police news releases to describe how another criminal has been apprehended.

Today, the Vancouver Police Department's media-relations department came up with a winner.

The headline "Fake Cops Behind Real Bars" told the tale of how three men were busted for impersonating police officers and ripping off tourists.

There have been 13 of these crimes since September 17.

"An Asian man, playing along with the two men and posing as a ‘victim’, encouraged the tourists to hand over their wallets and passports to the fake officers," the VPD stated in the release. "After a few minutes, the ‘officers’ returned the items to the victims, and the victims would later realize their money was missing."

Section 130 of the Criminal Code makes it an offence for anyone who falsely represents himself as a peace officer or "uses a badge or article of uniform or equipment in a manner that is likely to cause persons to believe he is a peace officer".

The maximum sentence on a summary conviction is a fine up to $5,000 and six months in jail.

Then, of course, there's the issue of all those thefts.