Front Burner - Organized crime's system for stealing cars

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

Auto thefts have been spiking in Canadian cities, with criminals using and disposing of the vehicles or selling them to fund organized crime, even exporting them overseas. . Why have cars become so easy for thieves to steal? What systems are organized crime using to take vehicles in large quantities? Will the federal Liberal’s national summit on auto theft last Thursday provide lasting solutions? Peter Edwards is a crime reporter with the Toronto Star and the author of numerous books on organized crime. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Damon Fairless. Welcome to Toronto. I've got a club, a cable, and a separate motion alarm. So this is a TikTok video by a chef named Michael Hunter.

And he's listing all the anti-theft contraptions he's put on his car after he says thieves stole four cars from his neighborhood in one night. He also sent us a video of an attempt to take his ride. So just live in fear of your vehicles being stolen and do everything in your power to try and stop them. Auto thefts are up in Canada. Like way, way up. In Toronto, they've gone up 300% in less than a decade. And in Montreal, they've jumped as much as 50% in a single year. That's why in recent weeks, the fight over what to do about it's been consuming federal politics. We didn't have these stories before, Trudeau. He has caused an explosion in car theft. stories before Trudeau. He has caused an explosion in car theft. A catchy slogan won't stop auto theft. A two-minute YouTube video won't disrupt organized crime. On Wednesday, the Liberals announced $28 million to help border services detect stolen cars. And on Thursday, they held

a national summit on the issue, saying they'll have a full plan to tackle thefts in coming weeks. And this isn't just about people losing cars. The RCMP says that some of these thefts have been extremely violent. The cars are being used by criminals, and they're being sold to fund organized crime. And because of all this, Canada's gotten a reputation across the world. And it's not a good one. So today I'm talking with Toronto Star crime reporter Peter Edwards. He's written a number of books about organized crime, and he's been uncovering how these

gangs steal cars, what they do with them, and he's going to break it all down for us. Hey, Peter, thanks so much for coming on Frontburner. I really appreciate it. Oh, thank you for having me. So Peter, I've been reading your work. I'm really interested in, you know, how these car theft operations work, but let's start with the numbers first.

So give me a sense in the recent years, you know, how much have thefts increased? At one point, Ontario's had gone up 48% and Quebec was higher. And it seemed that if you're not in basically on Prince Edward Island or in Tuktoyaktuk, you know, it's, it's a part of your life now. Wow.

So I think it's 12,000 a year in Toronto. Wow. So you've got more than a couple dozen a day. So there have been some really high-profile cases here. And I think maybe the most ironic is the fact that the federal justice minister had his SUV stolen in November. And that's actually the third time a justice minister has had their car stolen since 2021. And there's also an even more high-profile carjacking from a couple years ago that comes to mind. And that's when Mitch Marner, the Toronto Maple Leafs player who had his Land Rover stolen, I think at gunpoint, right?

Police say it happened in the city's West End outside of a movie theater. His black Range Rover allegedly stolen by three men. Marner and the woman he was with were unharmed. Yeah, and that's a fairly popular car with thieves. I was thinking that maybe they rushed to the summit so that they could keep their cars safe. I mean, it's easy to get cynical on this one. I've got one senior editor at the Star who his car was stolen, so I don't have to sell the story to him. So, so tell me more about this. Like what's the typical car theft look like in

Toronto? Are these carjackings or from driveways? What's the, what's the pattern here? Um, for a while there was coming in the middle of the night to driveways and they'd have something that would basically imitate the signal of your key fob and start your car. As people respond to that, there's more

carjacking and there's almost like the, um, the thieves have gotten way, way better. They can, they can take your car with a key fob in a minute. Now there are actually people who map out where the good vehicles are. Like they'll go to a high income area like Oakville and put little GPS trackers under cars and then they'll follow them. And they sort of steal to order. Like they're not just driving down the street and stealing the first three cars.

They're going for what they have the market for. Yeah. And I kind of want to get into that, but I guess before we go there, I kind of want to understand like what are the reasons behind these thefts? Like this is an enormous spike. So let's talk about some of the reasons and maybe we can start with the pandemic because that created a demand for stolen cars, right? Yeah, that was, it created an imbalance in parts being shipped. And so the thieves in Europe and especially West Africa caught on that they could

get a car for way cheaper here than they could over there. At the same time, the port of Montreal got significantly dirtier than Eastern seaboard American ports. And so it became the place to go if you want to ship a car. You know, you're talking about shipping these cars. So where are these, where are these cars ultimately going? So the West Africa was big and that explains why a lot of Teslas aren't stolen because there's not a lot of charging stations.

Oh, right. Okay. And then Italy has been popping up. Eastern Europe has been popping up. It's odd, but a lot are going through Belgium, which you wouldn't think, but Belgium is a popular transit point. So it's really moving around. But West Africa, the Mideast, very popular again. One of the things you mentioned earlier was that cars with key fobs are easier to steal.

It seems like in some ways, cars are easier and faster to steal now than they were like a decade ago. Is that, is that the case? Why, why is it so easy? Yeah. It's kind of ironic because the technology is supposed to be what's making your car safer, but you'd be better off if you drove a, you know,

2000 standard, nobody's going to steal that. You're talking to the right guy. I've literally got a five speed standard. Okay. Then you're, you're safe. You know, like they don't want standards and the auto makers overall aren't responding. Like the criminals are moving faster than they are. And so there's a, a lot of side businesses popping up now with things like kill switches

where you can disable your engine and they're, they're popping up to, to make up for, you know, what you don't get when you buy your car. Like now, when you buy a vehicle, you're, you'd be smart to talk to an insurance company and say, how can I lower my rate? What can I put in there? Wow. And so, I mean, so there is tech that can make it, you know, harder to steal these cars. Where are the automakers on this?

Is that something that, why is this still a problem if the tech exists? Because the criminals are better at the tech than they are, or more with the tech. And then I talked to one senior police officer off the record who said that, why do you put in security tech if you can sell the car again? We have a lot of brand emotional loyalty to vehicles, and we have like an emotional attachment. So if your car's stolen, you'll go back and buy the same thing. And there's some people with, well, the prime minister mentioned someone who had three vehicles stolen. The stories we hear are troubling. Len from Toronto had his stolen car located in Ghana. A vehicle from Milton was discovered on sale online in Nigeria. One family from the GTA had their SUV stolen three separate times.

And it doesn't seem like there's a lot of sharing. So you notice some brands just aren't being taken. You don't see many BMWs, Volvos, Mercedes stolen, then they're high end, but then you do see a lot of Toyotas, Hondas. One of the things I found really interesting about your reporting on this is, I guess, the who of who's stealing these cars. So let's talk about that. Like, how much is organized crime involved? That's what really got me because, see, if you look at cocaine trafficking, then you're fighting for turf, you're fighting for market, you're fighting for an area. This stuff, it's like there's enough for everybody.

And so this is one of the odd times covering organized crime where I haven't seen groups fighting with each other. There's actually a lot of cooperation or just ignoring each other. I mean, if I can steal your car and someone else can steal your neighbor's car, then we don't really have a problem. There's enough for both of us. And a long time ago, a drug trafficker told me that there's enough sunshine for everybody. And what he meant was, if you think about it, you can find a big enough

market for everybody with the cars. That's what they've got. There's a huge market overseas and the vehicles are worth two to three times what they're worth here. The organized part of the organized crime here is really, really interesting. You write about this kind of food chain or chain of command with people having specific roles. Spotters will identify vehicles and they're paid between $75 and $100 for their role in all this. The thieves between $3,000 and $20,000 depending on the vehicle for which they successfully steal. Those vehicles are then put in a spot to cool off before a runner will run that vehicle primarily to the port of Montreal, in some cases to rail yards in the greater Toronto area.

So take me through that, like take me through the whole chain of command there. Yeah, there's like five different stages. And at the very end, you've got the shippers and then you've got the people setting up the deals. And at the low end for about 1500 bucks or so, you've got basically young offenders stealing the cars. And so if they're caught, you know, they're not going to do much time. And there's, there are even reports that some of them get, get a bonus if they go to jail and, or you stay overnight and you don't squeal on anybody. Oh, wow.

I'm doing a book now on a guy who was in the United Nations gang in BC and he was an active car thief. And that was his entry level point, really. It's almost like playing major junior hockey. It's where you get noticed. It's where the scouts are looking. Yeah. Yeah. And then you steal them and then it's great if you're a criminal, if you can have a vehicle that's not traceable to you that you can use in a crime.

And so a lot of times when there's a, a murder, I'll, I'll be looking for, is there a burnt vehicle nearby? If you're going to, um, if you have an organized hit, then you're going to do it in a stolen car. So, so tell me about the guys stealing these cars. Like these are young, young dudes. Yeah. And it's, they could get as low as 250, but probably in around 1500

in the GTA for stealing a car. They probably work in twos. They're getting a lot more brazen. If someone is stealing your car, you really are best to let it go because there's a pretty good chance they're packing a gun. I talked to someone recently who there was a break-in in his house. He had just somehow got his key fob so that they couldn't break in quickly. So they just broke into his house, took a key fob from there,

and then went out and drove his car away. So the penalties aren't really keeping up with the crime. And so this is a high reward, low risk crime. If I'm peddling drugs, I could do a lot more time than if I steal a car and say it's my first time and I'll never do it again. And they don't seem all that worried about security cameras at all. I mean, this morning I was actually watching video of two guys stealing a car to attach

to a story and they clearly could see that they were being filmed and they really didn't care. And there are four different cameras on them. So it was almost cinematic. Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household

income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Okay, so Peter, once the cars are stolen, tell me about what route they might take to be sent out of the country. So they'll go somewhere within probably 20 miles of where you live and cool off, but not for very long. They want to see if they're being chased, and so they'll drop it off there. Then someone will come by, put it into probably a transport truck and probably drive it to the port of Montreal. Outside chance it'll get put onto a train, but a lot of this is in transport trucks. Once it's in the port of Montreal, it looks just like any other container. And so it,

it'll wait to be shipped. And there's, it's quite organized what goes where, like there are people directing the traffic, almost, um, in a legitimate purchase. The other thing that I don't understand is if, if we know that they're heading to like the port of Montreal in these big containers, how, how come they're not being caught more? And that's the big question. And that's, um, we've just fallen behind. We don't have the security. Also the, the security we have is watching for things coming in. We don't have good security for things going out. We're ready to try and catch the drugs coming into Canada. We're not ready for the things that shouldn't be being shipped out. And so it's like a separate

little fiefdom. It's almost like when you're a kid in that game where once you get somewhere, you scream home free and nobody can take you. Okay. And so those are the ones that are heading out of the country and the ones that aren't taken out of the country, how do they end up being used? So those would get, it's called revend where they change the identification number and they can quickly pop on a different number. Then they can be resold. This is a very desirable vehicle as well. If you're going to go commit a crime, you're obviously not going to do it in your car or a car you've rented, but if you do it in a stolen car, then you're free on that. The VIN, the vehicle identification numbers, how are they scrubbing these things?

They can just pop it off. It's on a little tag and they can just pop on the tag, put on a new tag and send it. And some have actually gone to dealerships that way. You can go in there and use it as your trade-in car. So it's clear we have a major problem here. These thefts have taken over political discourse. We've had the conservative leader, Pierre Polyev, he has been grilling the liberals over it, says we need tougher criminal penalties. Our common sense plan to put the brakes on car theft is to secure our ports and lock up the car thieves. And then the liberals, to their credit, I suppose, on Thursday,

they've held a national summit to discuss potential solutions. So I'm curious, what kind of measures came out of that summit? Hopefully better relationships, hopefully better public awareness. Hopefully people are looking at their vehicle and thinking, you know, maybe I can get a kill switch. Maybe I can just go get a club. Maybe I can get a GPS. Maybe I can get all three and go back to my insurance company.

I think a lot of the response of the insurance companies will be what drives things. You know, when people realize that they could be paying a significantly lower amount by making their vehicle safer, that'll do something. I know the day before the summit, the Liberals actually announced $28 million in funding to bolster the Canadian Border Services Agency. Today, I'm pleased to announce an additional investment of $28 million to bolster the Canada Border Services Agency's ability to detect and search containers with stolen vehicles.

They also said that they're kind of finalizing a fuller plan in the coming weeks. And there's a couple things that came out of that. One is they're talking about tougher criminal penalties. Canada's justice minister says they're open to legislating harsher sentences. My message to my constituents and to Canadians that are watching is that we are listening

and together with all of the important leaders in this room, we are ready to act. I get the sense too that there's discussion about banning the tech that enables the thieves to steal these cars. Can you tell me a bit about that? It's something, but banning the tech, I mean, that's like saying guns are illegal. Everybody knows that anyway. The criminals have already got them. They're extremely good at smuggling drugs.

Why wouldn't they just smuggle these? So I don't, it should be illegal, but it's kind of a so what. It's a bit underwhelming. I mean, if, as long as the port of Montreal is that porous, I don't see why people wouldn't ship them through. And the Criminal Intelligence Service of Canada, which is like an RCMP group, they had a report that just came out that talks about how street gangs, especially Toronto, are really going up in power, how they're actually moving outside of Toronto. And this is part of the

reason they're doing this. Like this is a huge shot in the arm for organized crime and they're not going to back away. If I was a criminal and I had a choice between, you know, moving a lot of cocaine or stealing cars, I'd steal cars every day because I'm not going to get much time. So you mentioned briefly insurance too, right? So the insurance claims have gone through the roof. Like in 2022, Canada passed, what, $1.2 billion for the first time. People get insurance money. They, as you said, they'll often go back and buy the same car that was stolen.

But, you know, I've heard more than one person say this is kind of a victimless crime. And I've heard some people say they kind of wouldn't mind their car getting stolen. So I guess that sounds like, from what you're saying, kind of a naive view, right? That there are real consequences behind these thefts. I remember the same conversations a long time ago. I'm kind of aging myself, but with bikers shooting bikers, and then an 11-year-old kid got shot, then Michelle Auger, the reporter, got shot.

On September 13, 2000, I'm arriving here in the paper, and one guy was waiting for me with a gun. He fired seven shots at me, hit me six times in the back. Who shot Auger is a mystery. But two blocks away, police found a gun, a silencer and a stolen car. The same car seen on surveillance cameras where Auger was shot. It all suggests a professional hit. Then all of a sudden it became a bigger deal.

The press releases coming out of Toronto area police, them catching carjackers, it's just a matter of time until a cop gets shot or someone's grandmother gets shot or someone's dog gets killed. I mean, there's going to be a nasty, sad face on this pretty soon. You can't have that level of crime and nobody gets hurt. And we are getting hurt in a way. I mean, if the police budget doesn't go up and they put more resources into auto theft, that means there's less resources into other things. I mean, do you want to cut down on domestic violence so you can protect the

Subaru down the street? These are nasty decisions you have to make. So I'm just curious what kind of reputation Canada is getting internationally because of this. Not bad. I mean, Interpol's talking about us. I mean, it's pretty sad when overseas their lights are going off and it's sort of economics 20 in a way. I mean, something's worth X here. It's worth 3X over there. We're not doing anything to crack down criminal wise. I mean, this guy I know who, who stole cars, he didn't

do any time for it. What it did was, was attract attention from bigger criminals that he wanted to work for. Okay. So Peter, I guess, you know, in the news, you can use category. Like what, what advice do you have for people who are worried about having their, their car stolen? For me personally, until I get better technically, I just park beside the expensive stealable cars. And so if I go to like a go lot, I'm parking beside the Ford F-150 or the, or the fancy Honda.

I just want to be beside someone that's more desirable than, than me. And so it's not, it's nothing I'm proud of, but, um, they can only steal one at a time. So. Well, there you have it. Uh, I mean, this interview was worth it just for that bit of advice. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming, coming on and talking to us. Oh, thank you. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. All right, that's it for today. I'm Damon Fairless. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner.

I'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.