Here are things that must be done to end car theft crisis in Canada
A couple dozen cars will likely be stolen in the GTA as police, government and industry officials huddle in Ottawa for a one-day summit on how to combat the national auto theft crisis.
That’s the rate for vehicles stolen from GTA driveways and or in carjackings on local streets every day.
As bad as that looks, the numbers are getting worse — which explains the need for the Feb. 8 summit.
From 2021 to 2022, auto thefts and carjackings more than doubled in Toronto, Peel and York Region, according to a December report by the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada (CISC).
“Given the increasing involvement of street gangs in vehicle theft, the potential for violence and carjackings will likely increase,” the report states.
The summit will draw representatives from all levels of government and policing, along with industry leaders, dealers and insurers, trying to figure out how to better work together.
“Everybody needs to jump in on this and understand that this is a big issue and a big problem that we’re facing,” said Peel police Det. Greg O’Connor, of the service’s commercial auto crime unit.
“We’re not going to arrest our way out of this epidemic.”
Here are nine key things experts say should be a focus of next week’s summit:
The organizations behind the crisis
According to Toronto police data, thieves managed to steal more than 12,000 vehicles in the city in 2023 — a startling 250 per cent increase since 2015, to a level just shy of a post-amalgamation record
The criminals behind all of those thefts have a definite division of labour, which presents authorities with a multi-layered challenge.
In the criminal food chain, things start with spotters who cruise neighbourhoods, looking for desirable cars.
Next come the thieves, often minors, who can make from $200 to $1,500 per theft.
“They’re basically going for a shopping list they’ve been provided,” Supt. Steve Watts of the Toronto police Organized Crime Enforcement unit says.
After that are the drivers, who move the hot vehicles, often to the Port of Montreal, in containerized trucks or rail cars.
Higher up the food chain are the facilitators, who work things out between sellers and buyers, in Canada and overseas. If reselling domestically, the car might have to be “reVINed” to free it from records saying it has been stolen — a step that may not be necessary to sell overseas.
Finally, there are the exporters. Sometimes they use legitimate shipping companies and sometimes they set up their own companies, using false documentation and making up to $50,000 per container.
This crime ecosystem has room for old established crime groups and emerging up-and-comers in the underworld — “They’re all involved,” Watts said.
Can the cars be fixed?
The amount of time it takes to steal a car has dramatically dropped as criminals have improved their grasp of technology that can duplicate or bypass modern cars’ keyless fobs.
That begs a question: Why don’t carmakers get better at making their vehicles theft-proof?
Some experts wonder why carmakers can’t build in “kill switches” — like a hidden ignition that renders a vehicle inoperable when stolen by shutting off the fuel pump.
There’s also the possibility of building better alarms and GPS tracking systems.
Meanwhile, thieves keep getting better with technology.
“While most vehicles continue to be stolen from private driveways overnight, thefts are increasingly occurring in broad daylight from more public parking lots (e.g. grocery stores, movie theatres, etc.) and often taking just seconds to complete,” the CISC report states.
The ‘obvious gap’
Stolen vehicles are often delivered to the Port of Montreal in containers via transport trucks and trains before being shipped overseas.
Such transportation networks represent “obvious gaps” in the current strategy to fight vehicle theft, Peel police Deputy Chief Nick Milinovich said.
Tightening up the port by identifying containers packed with stolen cars would go a long way to cutting auto theft, the CISC report says.
As the fight against auto thefts has become more and more of a safety threat to the public and individual police officers, “the disruption of these networks may best be accomplished by focusing enforcement on the attempted export of vehicles at the ports of entry,” the CISC report says.
Not just Montreal
Even if the Port of Montreal was tightened up, there would still be a significant amount of work for authorities to do, the report warns
Police and experts have long warned that not all cars are being stolen for profit — many end up as a disposable resource to help criminals commit and get away with other, often more violent crimes, such as robberies or homicides.
“Generally, once these crimes are committed, the vehicles are subsequently disposed of via intentional fire or by other means,” the CISC report says.
“Given the increasing involvement of street gangs in vehicle theft, the potential for violence and carjackings will likely increase.”
There will likely be talk at the summit on how auto theft is also funding other operations for organized crimes, “such as drug trafficking, purchase/ trafficking of firearms, and trade-base money laundering,” the report states.
The stain on Canada’s reputation
Authorities also need strategies for dealing with countries that are the destination for many of the cars stolen in Canada.
Many end up in West Africa and the Middle East, although the Port of Antwerp, Italy and Eastern Europe are among the other recent popular destinations for vehicles stolen in the GTA.
“The international market for stolen vehicles has surged, as many of the desirable vehicles that are readily available in Canada are either very costly internationally, or are not available for purchase in those countries,” the CISC report states.
One result of this is that the sale of Canadian cars ends up facilitating other global crime networks — the problem is big enough that Interpol recently labelled Canada a “major source country” in car-trafficking networks that fund terrorism, drug trafficking and human smuggling.
What happens after the arrest
Police would like to see laws toughened to reflect the scope of the problem; they argue that bail is too easy, and sentences are too light — with theft offences treated almost like a “victimless crime.”
“As organized crime remains motivated by financial profit, vehicle theft provides a low-risk, high-reward criminal activity,” the report continues.
Milinovich said similarly to how charges linked to the trafficking and importation of narcotics were designed to demonstrate the magnitude of those offences, “we need to apply those principles in the area of stolen autos.”
He added that the current set of offences and punishment “just aren’t reflective of the damage that it’s causing our community.”
Change is needed, O’Conner added, “because we are seeing repeat offenders.”
The insider risk
Delegates for the summit will likely also consider how to tighten up the databanks containing information about car ownership.
In December, Toronto police announced the results of a 10-month project called “Project Safari,” saying they had dismantled a sophisticated vehicle theft ring with connections to the Service Ontario databases that contain the personal information of car owners.
According to police, government employees trafficked in the addresses of legal car owners, directing thieves to homes with particularly desirable vehicles.
Insiders with access to government databases are extremely valuable to organized car theft rings, Bryan Gast of Équité Association, a private group funded by insurance agencies, said in an interview.
“It’s shocking how much damage can be done by those very few bad actors,” Gast said.
“They are sophisticated in their networks,” Gast said. “They’re positioning themselves in the right places.”
What can be done to ensure that stolen cars aren’t resold through ostensibly legitimate channels?
In November, Peel police announced they had cracked a ring run by local car sales professionals who were deep into insurance fraud as well as auto theft.
The police operation, dubbed “Project Memphis,” focused on a GTA group which they said trafficked stolen and re-VINed vehicles through car dealerships across Southwestern Ontario.
“Working with industry partners is the key” to cracking down on such theft, Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah said at a press conference at the time. (Duraiappah and Demkiw are set to speak at the summit in a session on how multi-jurisdictional investigations can be more effective.)
Organized crime and towing
It’s no secret that organized crime has had a hand in some facets of the towing industry, especially around the GTA, where police have long warned of an ongoing “tow truck war”?
The CISC report notes that efforts to crack down on auto thefts shouldn’t overlook the role of criminal towing operations.
“Additionally, while not yet prevalent, there are indications that tow trucks are being used to steal vehicles that are parked on the street, a tactic that is believed to raise less suspicion from passersby,” the report states.
The job ahead
The summit is timely but by no means a solution, experts say.
It follows a meeting of federal and provincial justice ministers in Bromont, Que., when officials discussed underlying security issues related to vehicle theft, like how police warn it supports firearms smuggling, gang violence, terrorism, and the trafficking of illegal drugs like fentanyl.
Things will turn around when authorities are as co-ordinated as the thieves, experts say.
“It’s not just a law enforcement problem,” Watts said.
This article was reported by The Star
