Inside Service Ontario ring accused of providing information to car thieves.
Seven people have been arrested in an inside Service Ontario ring of auto thieves which has been dismantled by Toronto Police.
Police alleged thieves were conspiring with employees at Service Ontario who helped them steal high-end vehicles in the Toronto area.
They “were trafficking in vehicle data taken from the Ministry of Transportation database,” police said of the December 6 takedown.
Police arrested seven suspects accused of stealing vehicles from homes across the GTA.
Some 25 search warrants were executed and investigators seized about $1.5 million dollars in proceeds of crime, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and several luxury vehicles.
Detectives alleged the Service Ontario employees would provide the suspects with vehicle and driver information, including addresses.
“The accused would then steal the vehicles,” police alleged in a release. “Employees at Service Ontario would also provide the accused with fraudulent vehicle registrations and vehicle identification numbers (VIN).”
The investigation, which was dubbed Project Safari, began in February 2023 by officers from 53 Division Major Crime Unit.
Some 3,000 vehicles were stolen in South Etobicoke alone in the last year.
The probe centered the thefts of high-end vehicles from the Greater Toronto area. Some 3,000 vehicles were stolen in South Etobicoke in the last year alone.
Most of the expensive vehicles are sent abroad for resale or have their VINs changed and resold here or used to commit crimes.
Investigators said they located and recovered several stolen and re-vined vehicles in addition to equipment, tools and electronics utilized by the accused to facilitate the theft of motor vehicles.
The search warrants revealed that the amount of people who had their data trafficked by the accused numbered in the hundreds.
Police said some of the vehicles were stolen from the driveways of city residents.
Detectives are again warning residents to remove FOBs from their vehicle and place in a Faraday pouch, lock their car doors and windows, park indoors or in a well-lit area, install motion sensor lights or security cameras and cover your VIN numbers.
Charged with about 30 offences in relation to car thefts are; Keerthan Mangaleswaran, 29, Gobi Yogarajah, 25, both of Toronto, Kajan Jokanajakam, 32, of Oshawa, Milosha Ariyaratnam, 29, of Toronto, Howard Lee, 22, of Markham, Doneika Jackson, 38, of Toronto, and Andrea Fernandes, 30, of Vaughn.