After Northwestel confirmed over the weekend that 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 SA国际影视传媒� disrupting long distance phone service, cellphone messaging, landline use and internet services SA国际影视传媒� 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 .

"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 '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 at 669-1111, contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 , (click on "submit a web tip") or text: SA国际影视传媒渘wtnutipsSA国际影视传媒� plus your message to 274637.

More to come.