A violent offender who in late January is behind bars.

When he left the halfway house, Guy Gene Tomoff, 50, was in the middle of serving his third federal sentence for a 2009 robbery at a Nanaimo bar, during which he tied up a woman and stole cash and alcohol.

Last Thursday (April 5) at around 11 p.m., a Victoria police canine unit officer connected a series of dots that led to an Esquimalt apartment suite, where Tomoff was staying with an "associate," said spokesperson Const. Mike Russell.

Officers were investigating an abandoned vehicle in the parking lot of 531 West Bay Terr. The vehicle led to the apartment in which police say Tomoff had been staying for a day or two, Russell said.

Tomoff was arrested without incident and is now at the Vancouver Island Regional Correction Centre waiting for his case to go before the Parole Board of Canada.

The process could take about two months, Russell said.

emccracken@vicnews.com