Far-fetched tales of woe are falling victim to new technologies
“The recorder confirmed the speed of the vehicle, which contradicted what the driver told us,” says Brian Smiley, a spokesperson for MPI. In fact, at the moment of the crash, the vehicle had been travelling 140 km/h. The brakes were never applied. The seat belts were unbuckled. Tech alone, though, won’t allow investigators to keep up with a growing problem that, according to a 2018 report from insurance company Aviva, adds $2 billion a year to Canadians’ premiums.
“Our estimate is that auto crime is up 20 per cent each year for the past five years,” says Terri O’Brien, Équité’s CEO, who came over from the banking sector and believes fraud is migrating out of that industry due to technological safeguards. “When chip cards came into effect and got rid of credit card and skimming fraud, and when banks started clamping down on money laundering with capabilities for detection and prevention, that crime had to move somewhere.