CBSA and RCMP tight-lipped about video showing recovery of stolen vehicles at Vancouver port
Briefly: Officials refused to provide details on an Instagram video that appears to show the recovery of stolen vehicles from a Port of Vancouver container dock.
Canada Border Services Agency recovered no vehicles last year in B.C., but says it has found nearly 100 so far in 2024. Quebec and the Greater Toronto Area are the hotbed of auto thefts in Canada.
Criminals using shipping containers to export stolen vehicles find it a lucrative means of laundering dirty money, says a crime expert. Peter German blamed the lack of a dedicated police force at major ports since 1997. READ MORE BELOW & WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW.
Bob Mackin
Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is not disputing the authenticity of a video showing five allegedly stolen vehicles being removed from a container terminal in the Port of Vancouver.
Image of an apparent stolen vehicle recovery operation in Vancouver.
(Northly Vancouver/Instagram)
The video, from a user under the handle @vk22233 and posted in July on the Northly Vancouver Instagram account, appears to have been shot from the cab of a truck at the Centerm container terminal near downtown Vancouver.
Melina Vissat, spokesperson for Centerm operator DP World, refused to comment. Instead, she directed inquiries to CBSA.
The video shows three tow trucks and a flatbed in a convoy that ends with a marked CBSA cruiser.
CBSA spokesperson Rebecca Purdy confirmed a CBSA cruiser is in the video. She also said what is seen in the clip is “consistent with the way stolen vehicles recovered by the CBSA are transported from marine container terminals to the local police of jurisdiction.”
Purdy, however, said CBSA was “unable to verify the time and location based on the video alone.”
Purdy refused to explain why CBSA could not analyze the video and compare it with recent incident reports in order to provide a reporter with basic information, such as the date and whether anyone was arrested.
Nationwide, CBSA says 90% of the 1,612 stolen vehicles recovered so far in 2024 were intercepted in Quebec and the Greater Toronto Area. Of the total this year, 94 were in the Pacific region, which exceeds the 75 recovered for all of 2020.
Last year, however, CBSA reported no stolen vehicle recoveries in B.C., the Prairies and Northern and Southern Ontario.
Vancouver Police Department public information officer Const. Tanya Visintin said the VPD did not know about the incident in the video and referred a reporter to CBSA.
The B.C. RCMP, a partner in the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team (IMPACT), refused to comment on either the date of the activity in the video or whether the incident led to arrests or charges.
“The B.C. RCMP is aware of this social media video and have nothing further say with respect to this inquiry,” said an email from the Mounties.
IMPACT bills itself as B.C.’s auto crime police and manages the Bait Car program across the province to catch auto thieves red-handed. In June, IMPACT announced 14 charges each against Mohamed Wael Ozor, 29, and Omar Wael Ozor, 20, including theft of motor vehicle over $5,000, possession of stolen property and trafficking in stolen property. Police in Vancouver, Delta and Langley, along with CBSA, intercepted shipping containers and recovered 29 stolen vehicles in May estimated to be worth a total $2.5 million. The Ozors are scheduled to appear again in Surrey Provincial Court on Aug. 23.
A lack of dedicated police force at B.C. ports is a a “serious gap in our law enforcement umbrella,” according to a report by the former head of the RCMP in Western Canada.
Anti-money laundering expert Peter German.
Peter German, who chairs the Vancouver Anti-Corruption Institute, analyzed vehicle theft trends in his 2019 Dirty Money 2 report for the provincial government.
German concluded that stolen vehicles are used domestically and internationally as “conduits for the laundering of criminal proceeds.”
“The disproportionate number of luxury vehicles not recovered by police supports the belief that organized vehicle theft rings are stealing vehicles for export,” German said. “The need to address the export of stolen and fraudulently obtained vehicles from B.C. ports is a subset of the larger issue of criminal enforcement at ports.”
The federal Liberal government shut down the Ports Canada Police in 1997. Meanwhile, Port of Seattle Police Department numbers 150 staff at SeaTac Airport and Seaport.
German’s 2023 report on the lack of port policing for City of Delta said CBSA representatives described “great challenges” to locate stolen vehicles in containers without impeding the legal shipment of goods. Three officers review more than 100,000 export files a year.
“They note that exporters of stolen vehicles engage in a number of strategies to thwart CBSA, including hiding stolen vehicles behind other products, placing them in containers with vehicles that are not stolen, and suspending vehicles with chains, which requires that the container be transported to a specialized facility to safely unload the vehicles for examination,” German reported.
In May, the federal government announced its National Action Plan on Combating Auto Theft, including $28 million more for CBSA.
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Briefly: Officials refused to provide details on
