The investigation, dubbed Project R & R, was initiated after a string of thefts in the Greater Toronto Area. Investigators say the vehicles were loaded into shipping containers and transported by truck or train to the Port of Montreal.
But with a vehicle now being stolen every six minutes across the country, those recoveries represent just a fraction of the problem.from the Canadian Finance and Leasing Association noted that Toronto saw a 300 per cent increase in vehicle thefts from 2015 to 2022, with the problem growing progressively worse each year. In 2022, more than 9,600 vehicles were stolen in Toronto alone.
, a certified fraud investigator with Équité Association. “They can quickly and easily exploit these vulnerabilities, which has led to this significant increase in stolen vehicles across Canada.”over the next three years to combat vehicle theft, including establishing “auto theft prosecution teams” to investigate and prosecute criminal organizations, but others say more action is needed at the federal level.
“The place of the crime, it’s all in Canada,” Abdulai Bashiru Dapilah, deputy director Ghana’s Economic and Organized Crime Office, told CBC. Despite that fact, he says he hasn’t heard from the RCMP in regard to the vehicle thefts.In some cases, frustrated Canadians are taking the issue into their own hands.