Russian sanctions are fueling a Canadian car theft epidemic

From the article:

While Western export bans have severed Russia from much of the auto market, they have not tempered the demand for brand-name SUVs and trucks. That has given rise to a sophisticated network of criminals that steals cars, hides them in shipping containers and sends them to Russia, often by way of the Middle East.

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Interpol, the international police organization, received 4,798 reports that stolen Canadian vehicles had been found in Russia from February 2024 to July 2026, according to data obtained by The New York Times and confirmed by two law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it is considered sensitive.

Pickup trucks like Dodge Rams, Toyota Tundras and Ford F-150s are in particularly high demand.

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Demand for pricey Western cars has always been high in Russia. The sanctions unintentionally incentivized sellers to find illicit ways to supply the market, driving up prices and making the cars even more of a status symbol, Mr. Aleynik said at the Chortkiv detention facility in western Ukraine.

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Since Canada’s car theft epidemic began in 2021, officials have introduced policing overhauls and invested tens of millions in tackling the crime. Theft rates have fallen, but stolen vehicles still flow through Canadian ports.

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Car thefts surged in Canada after Covid lockdowns were lifted in 2021. With the global supply chain in turmoil, criminals spotted an opportunity. Within a year, auto theft rates in Canada had reached historic highs and continued to climb.

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The police recovered cars as often as they could, but thousands disappeared every year. In the hot spots of Ontario and Quebec, nearly half of the stolen cars vanished.

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Frédéric Bonsaint, an officer at the border agency, said that every week, his team searched around a dozen containers at the Port of Montreal and discovered 20 to 30 stolen cars worth in total up to $2 million. Similar checks are carried out at other ports.

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The Russian black market did not create Canada’s criminal gangs or smuggling networks. Those ingredients were already in place, said Mr. Aleynik, the Russian who faces car theft charges. The sanctions merely increased demand and profits.

Key to the effort, Mr. Aleynik said, are criminal contacts in Canada who falsify customs documents and share the latest intelligence on how to evade checks.

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Mr. Gast, the former police officer now at Équité Association, said that international buyers placed orders for specific cars. Mr. Aleynik said that happened through online marketplaces that connect black-market buyers and sellers.

If a buyer orders, say, 15 Land Rovers, scouts will scour affluent Canadian neighborhoods and shopping malls for those vehicles.

Stolen cars usually leave Canada through the port of Montreal, but Vancouver has seen a recent uptick in response to an east coast crackdown, officials said.

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Smugglers often moved stolen Canadian cars to Russia via the United Arab Emirates, according to the Mounties. Officials said that they had also identified routes through Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Lithuania.

The Canada-to-Russia pipeline was visible because Moscow remains an active participant in — and sometimes abuser of — Interpol’s information-sharing programs. When the Russian authorities investigate a possible stolen car, they run it through Interpol’s database. With each hit, the database automatically updates to say that a stolen car was found in Russia.

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Why would the Russian authorities return stolen cars to Western countries? One explanation is that Russian law prohibits the registration of vehicles listed in Interpol’s database. Returning them is one way to prevent unusable stolen cars from piling up. Western officials say that Moscow is broadly cooperative when it comes to crimes like auto theft.

That could change. Last month, Russia took steps to allow the registration of cars stolen from “unfriendly countries,” including Canada. A proposal by the Russian Interior Ministry would protect those cars from seizure. European officials have warned that this could fuel a rise in transnational car thefts.