A Toronto man who had two cars stolen in the same year took retrieval efforts into his own hands after police were unable to return his vehicle.
The man, identified only as Andrew in a CBC News report, said after the theft of the first vehicle, he hid multiple AirTags inside his replacement 2022 GMC Yukon XL as a precautionary measure in case it was also stolen. It was.
According to CBC, Andrew was targeted for the second time last August, and employed the Apple AirTags to track his stolen vehicle to a nearby rail yard, to the Port of Montreal, and finally to a used car facility in the United Arab Emirates.
Repeated communications with multiple police services to retrieve his car amounted to nothing, leading Andrew to contact both interpol and a private investigator.
According to the report, Andrew was in contact with Toronto police, Peel police and York regional police services in the days following the theft, as the AirTags began to ping across a number of Toronto’s neighboring jurisdictions.
Two days after the car was taken, officers moved in on the vehicle, with Andrew’s assistance via text, at the Canadian Pacific Kansas City railway’s (CPKC) terminal in Vaughan, CBC reports.
Police were able to narrow the car’s location to one of two shipping containers, but did not have authorization to open the containers, so directed Andrew to the railway’s private police service.
Andrew told CBC that CPKC Police did not respond to his call that night and that the train left the terminal with his stolen vehicle onboard.
He said the Airtags continued to ping over the coming days from locations in eastern Ontario before reaching the Port of Montreal.
Andrew told CBC that he continued to alert local police services to little avail.
The Airtags then fell offline for a month before coming back online from Antwerp, Belgium.
Finally on Sept. 26, about six weeks after the car was stolen from Andrew’s driveway, his SUV landed at a port near Dubai, and into a used car lot where it was put up for sale, CBC confirmed.
According to Toronto Police Service data, in 2023, there were 12,181 incidents of auto theft. May, 2023, saw the most with 1,156 reports of stolen vehicles.
Feb, 2023 saw 858 incidents of auto theft, the least in 2023. In Jan, 2024 so far there have been 378 reports of auto theft.
Despite being unable to retrieve Andrew’s car, Toronto police told CBC his circumstances were “unusual,” and are urging victims of auto theft not to try to reclaim stolen vehicles themselves.
“Overseas we have relationships with both law enforcement and private industries, including insurance companies and shipping companies, and sometimes we are successful in returning cars from some of those areas. More locally, we work in alignment with our law enforcement partners and other external agencies, like insurance companies and auto manufacturers, to assist us in these complex investigations,” Stephanie Sayer, a Toronto Police Services representative told Now Toronto.
For measures regarding vehicle safety TPS recommend following these guidelines.
