Canada’s booming industry – auto theft

Gone every 6 minutes.

Canada and incredible growth are rarely mentioned together anymore. Maybe in the prices of real estate but there is one ‘sector’ outpacing it all: auto theft. The growth rate here is blistering.

Every 6 minutes a car is stolen. Motor vehicle theft grew by 24% in 2022. Year-over-year growth has reached 50% in Quebec, 48% in Ontario, 34% in Atlantic Canada, and 18% in Alberta. Since 2015 Toronto’s auto theft has grown by 3X, Peel Region’s almost doubled in 3 years and is up almost 50% in the first 7 months of 2023 vs. the same period in 2022.

Toronto:

Peel Region:

In 2022 the Canadian insurance industry has lost more than one billion dollars on vehicle theft claims for the first time ever.

Stealing cars is one thing. What do you do with it after? There needs to be a whole support structure to move it, swap VINs, export, sales, etc. The organizational structure that had to be grown with it somehow completely went unnoticed as well.

What is more baffling is that for the thousands of cars stolen every year, only a few people get charged in relation outside of sting operations. There were only 5 charges in Ontario for altering, removing, or destroying a VIN in 2021. There were 27,495 vehicles stolen that year there.

The previous years are no different. Between 2015 and 2020 a total of 17 people were charged with reVINing charges in Ontario. It is really hard to figure out what is actually going on here and why is it so easy to move and flip stolen cars in Canada. It’s a car we are talking about here, not something small.

Not all cars stay in Canada. It is more fruitful and less risky to ship cars out to the international markets and it is much easier than you think it is. Ports can only check so many shipping containers because of volume and even then they actually have to do a physical inspection of the VIN plate to match the declaration.

The Canadian Border Services Agency’s stolen car interception has more than tripled since 2016 but still a small portion of the exports.

Auto theft must be so easy and worry-free for criminals in Canada that they ship the stolen cars with Canadian licence plates still attached to the vehicles. Here is an obviously stolen Canadian vehicle from Ontario advertised for sale in Ghana. It is almost becoming a status symbol.

The criminal organizations and the fluidity of the crime are growing without hiccups. The seldom busts that there are amount to single digits in value to what is going on. Washing the money from criminal proceeds seems to be just as easy in Canada.

The interest in tackling the crime is not on par with the growth, and organized crime is not slowing down. This is something that needs to be closely investigated not only because of the growth but also because of its ease in financial transactions. I suspect a whole window will open up here if someone takes a close enough look.

Until then don’t be surprised if your insurance premiums goes up.