VANCOUVER—Former Toronto Raptor Danny Green alleges he was robbed on his first night in Vancouver.

In an interview with Harrison Sanford for an episode of their podcast Inside the Green Room, Green said he had just arrived in Vancouver for a youth basketball skills camp tour late last week when the robbery occurred.

Green said he and his tour companions booked an Airbnb that “looked great” in pictures, but when his teammates went to check in, they told him “we gotta change it, it’s old, it looks raggedy, it feels haunted.”

Green said they all went to have a look at the place, leaving two bags in their car.

“We were there 10 minutes ... we go back outside, and pretty much — not robbed of everything — but two book bags gone,” Green told Sanford on the July 9 episode of the podcast.

Green said the two bags that were taken contained “electronics, computers, laptops” as well as registry money from the basketball camp tour. He said he didn’t know if the door had been locked when they left the car unattended.

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Immediately, they began searching for the bags, and realized they were in a part of town Green was unfamiliar with.

“We ran in the street like savages looking for who had this book bag ... it looked really bad,” he said. “Mind you, we didn’t know where we were located, we were two blocks from East Hastings ... It’s the worst street in North America in terms of drugs use.”

Green said that he was “heated” and they drove around with a police officer searching for the bags, but had no luck finding them.

While Vancouver police say they haven’t located a report on the alleged theft, they have assigned an investigator to look into it.

Green added that he was surprised to find that Vancouver had an area he described as a “ghetto or a hood.”

Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, which includes East Hastings, is a neighbourhood known for high rates of drug use and poverty, but is also home to an overdose-prevention site and many services for people living with poverty, homelessness and mental illness.

Jason Robillard, media spokesperson for the Vancouver Police Department, said that thefts from vehicles are a “major concern” in downtown Vancouver.

“We continue to see an increase in the number of incidents,” he said in a statement to Star Vancouver. “The VPD consistently encourages people to remove all visible items from their cars when they park anywhere in the city.”

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Robillard said that while “it’s unfortunate Mr. Green had a negative experience in Vancouver,” the city is still a safe place overall.

Last week, Green announced his decision to sign with the L.A. Lakers after winning the NBA Championship with the Raptors.

Green said that the Vancouver incident was the only part of his basketball skills camp tour Canada-wide tour that was “rocky,” adding that “everything else was great on the camp tour.”

On Friday Green held a meet and greet for more than 100 fans at a Vancouver London Drugs location.

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