National Action Plan on Combatting Auto Theft

Introduction

Auto theft is a complex problem that requires manufacturers, insurance companies, shippers, law enforcement agencies and governments to work together to identify solutions. Each partner has a role in making it harder to steal vehicles, recover stolen vehicles, prevent their exportation, and apprehend the perpetrators of these crimes.

Canada is not alone in experiencing a rise in vehicle theft. It is an increasingly transnational criminal phenomenon that requires international and cross-jurisdictional collaboration.

The National Summit on Combatting Auto Theft, held on February 8, 2024, brought together senior officials from federal, provincial and territorial governments, law enforcement and industry representatives. Following the conclusion of the Summit, participants endorsed a Statement of Intent, committing to work together to combat auto theft and to finalizing an action plan.

The National Action Plan on Combatting Auto Theft (Action Plan) launched May 20, 2024, outlines actions focused on disrupting, dismantling and prosecuting the organized crime groups behind auto theft. The Action Plan identifies various measures and initiatives that will be carried out by the federal government in cooperation with provincial and territorial governments and their partners, in accordance with their respective roles, priorities and responsibilities. It will be continuously reviewed and updated to be responsive to the evolving tactics employed by criminal networks.

Concerted efforts undertaken to combat auto theft since the beginning of 2024 are showing positive results.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) continues to examine containers destined to export. The CBSA intercepted 2,277 stolen vehicles in 2024. As of May 31, the CBSA intercepted an additional 666 stolen vehicles in 2025.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is processing international notifications and requests received through INTERPOL's stolen motor vehicle database to better track stolen vehicles with international partners. The RCMP received 3,931 notifications about Canadian vehicles and 718 international collaboration requests, as of May 31, 2025.

The CBSA and the RCMP are directly supporting ongoing joint investigative and intelligence teams with police in Ontario and Quebec, including Project VECTOR, Project RECHERCHER and Project EMISSION.

The CBSA has responded to 1,241 requests for information from law enforcement to aid in investigations and criminal proceedings in 2025, as of May 31, 2025.

The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) has provided a total of 75 financial intelligence disclosures to law enforcement in support of their investigations as of May 31, 2025, an increase of 29 since October 2024.

This page will be updated to reflect progress made under the Action Plan. The third update is now available, and includes actions taken from November 2024 to May 2025.

Intelligence or information sharing responsibilities

Canada Border Services Agency

• Enhance customs information and intelligence sharing to support municipal and provincial police forces.
• Engage all partners in the export trade, such as port authorities, shipping lines and rail operators, to develop actionable intelligence on stolen vehicles.
• Engage foreign border services, such as the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Border Five and FRONTEX, for collaboration, best practices and technology solutions.
• Review existing legislation and regulations to identify and reduce barriers to information sharing.

Status as of May 2025

• The CBSA continues to respond to requests for information from police to aid in investigations and criminal proceedings. This year, the CBSA has responded to 1,241 requests as of May 31, 2025.
• The CBSA has developed a strategy to share available Import/Export Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) data with external partners, such as Équité and Carfax, to help prevent fraud related to vehicles.
• The CBSA is exploring detection technology used in other countries and assessing their potential application within Canada. A new device, used in Germany, has been selected for testing in collaboration with Greater Toronto Area Region and Montreal Marine Container Examination Facilities. Further investigation is underway to gain a comprehensive understanding of the potential application of technology used abroad and evaluate other devices.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

• Deliver Canadian Police College courses on auto theft investigative techniques, to municipal, provincial, and federal levels of law enforcement.
• The RCMP continues to strengthen active international cooperation with foreign law enforcement partners through the RCMP's international network.

Status as of May 2025

• The Canadian Police College held its latest 5-day course for law enforcement personnel and investigators on specialized vehicle theft investigative techniques in April 2025. An additional offering of this course is planned for September 2025.
• The College regularly delivers training offerings that build critical investigative capacity to target and disrupt criminal networks, including those involved in auto thefts.
• The Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC) continues to prioritize an updated assessment of vehicle theft in Canada.

Joint responsibilities of the Canada Border Services Agency and Royal Canadian Mounted Police

• The CBSA and the RCMP continue to be active members of multiple active auto theft operations and joint task forces across the country led with key provincial and municipal police services and will continue to participate in new partnerships as they emerge.

Status as of May 2025

• The CBSA and the RCMP continue to directly support ongoing joint investigative and intelligence teams with police in Ontario and Quebec, including Project VECTOR, Project RECHERCHER and Project EMISSION. As of May 15, 2025, nearly 3,000 reported stolen vehicles in Canada have been recovered to date through Project VECTOR and RECHERCHER.
• The RCMP's international network continues to work closely with domestic and international partners on combatting transnational organized crime involvement in auto theft.
• In March 2025, the RCMP's INTERPOL National Central Bureau Ottawa deployed Canadian expert vehicle examiners to West Africa, as part of a multilateral operation with INTERPOL funded by Public Safety Canada under Project "Drive Out", to identify and disrupt the export of Canadian stolen vehicles to the region from organized crime groups. The operation, named SAFEWHEELS, involved vehicle checks at land and sea borders and resulted in the detection of approximately 150 stolen vehicles and the seizure of more than 75, 50 of which were Canadian stolen cars.
• The CBSA continues to actively partner with key provincial and municipal police services in various auto theft operations and joint task forces across the country.

Public Safety Canada

• Establish and lead a National Intergovernmental Working Group on Auto Theft with federal, provincial, and territorial governments to coordinate actions, monitor progress, and explore new initiatives that may be undertaken at all levels for a multi-faceted approach to combatting auto theft.

Status as of May 2025

• The second meeting of the National Intergovernmental Working Group on Auto Theft took place in February 2025.

Joint responsibilities of the Canada Border Services Agency, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and local police

• Strengthen existing ways of sharing intelligence and information among law enforcement and public safety partners by:
  • Dedicating federal resources to the provincially led Auto Theft Joint Intelligence Group, with key police forces and leveraging private sector collaboration;
  • Using the CISC network, to provide actionable intelligence, and the Canadian Integrated Response to Organized Crime (CIROC), to coordinate national operational approaches to organized crime, including vehicle theft.

Status as of May 2025

• The RCMP continues to participate in intelligence and information-sharing including through the Joint Intelligence Group, Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC) and the Canadian Integrated Response to Organized Crime (CIROC).
• The CBSA responded to 2,758 requests for information from law enforcement in 2024. So far in 2025, the CBSA has responded to 1,241 requests as of May 31, 2025.
• The CBSA continues to provide embedded intelligence resources to the Auto Theft Joint Intelligence Group (JIG) and regularly collaborates with individual Police Office Jurisdictions across Canada to share intelligence and respond to requests for assistance.
• The RCMP continues to assist INTERPOL in facilitating the flow of information on stolen vehicles and auto theft trends between countries through its development and dissemination of actionable intelligence packages.

Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC)

• Continued efforts to strengthen Canada's Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing (AML/ATF) regime, including supervising implementation of AML/ATF measures and reporting by regulated sectors to FINTRAC, which in turn can lead to useful financial intelligence to address money laundering and proceeds of crime linked to auto-theft, will support overall efforts by law enforcement to address auto-theft in Canada.

Status as of May 2025

• FINTRAC has disclosed a total of 75 financial intelligence disclosures to law enforcement in support of their investigations as of May 31, 2025, an increase of 29 since October 2024.

Transport Canada

• Encourage provinces and territories to take steps to combat "revinning," or the use of fraudulent vehicle registrations to re-sell stolen vehicles. This could include investments to enable comprehensive data sharing across jurisdictions through the existing Interprovincial Record Exchange (IRE).

Status as of May 2025

• Transport Canada remains engaged on and is supportive of continued collaboration to address the issue of fraudulent vehicle registration, including encouraging the provinces and territories' full participation in the Interprovincial Records Exchange system.
• The Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA) Task Force on Stolen Vehicles will table its report with the Council of Deputy Ministers of Transportation and Highway Safety. The report will confirm the importance of all provinces and territories' full participation in the Interprovincial Records Exchange to maximize access to national VIN data information and includes a set of best practices that provide further guidance to jurisdictions to detect fraudulent VINs.

Ontario

Manitoba

Status as of May 2025

• In January 2025, Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) and the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) Commercial Stolen Auto Unit (CSAU) dismantled a major VIN cloning auto theft operation, using advanced technology developed by MPI's Special Investigation Unit (SIU) to analyze VIN and vehicle data. The operation, named Project Buyer Bee Aware, focused on high-end stolen vehicles from Ontario that were re-registered in Manitoba and sold through local dealerships and online platforms. The investigation combined this technology-driven data analysis with surveillance and public tips, resulting in the seizure of 17 vehicles worth over $1 million and the arrest of a Winnipeg resident.

Intervention

Canada Border Services Agency

• Enhance collaboration with port authorities, rail and shipping partners to expand export cargo container examinations, including the deployment of scanning and detection technology in new locations (e.g., rail yards).
• Integrate the use of advanced data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to better target containers with suspected stolen vehicles.
• Invest $28 million to bolster efforts in combatting auto theft by:
  • Hiring new frontline Border Service Officers and deploying them to ports, railyards and intermodal hubs to expand examination capacity in response to intelligence developed by the CBSA and law enforcement.
  • Dedicating new resources to intelligence and targeting capabilities specific to stolen vehicles.
  • Identifying and testing new Detection Technology tools to expand capacity to screen containers for stolen vehicles.
  • Leveraging data from interdictions of stolen vehicles and use AI to predict location of suspected stolen vehicles, as well as complicit entities within the supply chain of the export of stolen vehicles.
• Continue to explore, test and if effective at deterring, procure new detection technologies for improved stolen vehicle interdiction, with a particular focus on existing mobile technology.

Status as of May 2025

• The CBSA continues to use mobile detection technology at both the Canadian National Intermodal yard in Brampton and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) Intermodal yard in Vaughan, including the mobile Z Backscatter cargo and vehicle screening system. CBSA is in the process of procuring additional backscatter scanning units.
• The CBSA is exploring detection technology used in other countries and assessing their potential application within Canada.  A new device, used in Germany, has been selected for testing in collaboration with Greater Toronto Area Region and Montreal Marine Container Examination Facilities. Further investigation is underway to gain a comprehensive understanding of the potential application of technology used abroad and evaluate other devices.

Joint responsibilities of the Canada Border Services Agency, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and local police

• Ongoing: Increase export examinations at port, rail and intermodal facilities to disrupt the export of stolen vehicles.
• Ongoing: Maintain CBSA's 100% response rate for intelligence received from law enforcement to conduct container examinations.
• Develop and implement a "GPS tracking protocol" for auto theft victims to share location data of stolen vehicles with relevant authorities for safe retrieval.

Status as of May 2025

• The CBSA continues to act as the 24/7 central point of contact for police to coordinate requests to locate vehicles that may be tracked to a marine port or intermodal facility.
• The CBSA continues to maintain its 100% response rate for intelligence received from law enforcement to conduct container examinations.
• The CBSA continues to examine containers destined to export. The CBSA intercepted 2,277 stolen vehicles in 2024. As of May 31, the CBSA intercepted an additional 666 stolen vehicles in 2025.
• On October 30, 2024, the RCMP and CBSA formalized a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding the use of technology at the Greater Toronto Area Train Yards. The MOU has increased export cargo container examinations through the deployment of trained officers to support the continued operation of an RCMP-owned mobile Backscatter X-ray and Vehicle Screening System.  

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

• Connect Canada's stolen motor vehicle records from the Canadian Police Information Centre to INTERPOL's Stolen Motor Vehicle Database.
• Ongoing work to respond to international requests about Canadian stolen vehicles on the INTERPOL Stolen Motor Vehicle Database and monitor for trends.

Status as of May 2025

• The RCMP INTERPOL National Central Bureau in Ottawa continues to process international notifications and requests received through INTERPOL's Stolen Motor Vehicle database. This collaborative effort has contributed to the identification of stolen vehicle trafficking routes and strengthened international enforcement action. Trends in notifications and requests have stabilized over time, with a slight decrease in 2025 so far. The RCMP has received 3,931 notifications about Canadian vehicles and 718 international collaboration requests, as of May 31, 2025.

Public Safety Canada

• Invest $9.1 million over three years in municipal and provincial police services to improve their capacity to provide timely referrals, information and actionable intelligence to the CBSA, as well as take custody of stolen vehicles intercepted by CBSA.
• Invest $3.5 million over three years to support INTERPOL in combatting transnational organized vehicle crime.
• Through the National Crime Prevention Strategy, continue investing $51 million per year in community-based prevention initiatives for youth-at-risk for future involvement in the criminal justice system, including to prevent at-risk youth from joining gangs.
• Prioritize new project funding under the Youth Gang Prevention Fund for community-based initiatives that prevent at-risk youth form joining gangs and divert them from future involvement in criminal and anti-social activities, such as youth delinquency, auto theft, substance use and gun violence.
• Continue investing $390 million over five years to support provinces and territories through the Initiative to Take Action Against Gun and Gang Violence to address the increased links between gun and gang violence and auto theft.

Status as of May 2025

• Public Safety Canada has established a contribution agreement to provide federal funding to Quebec to bolster their law enforcement efforts targeting auto theft. A similar contribution agreement is being established with Ontario.
• In November 2024, Public Safety Canada launched a call for applications under the National Crime Prevention Strategy to support projects that reduce the harmful factors that lead youth to get involved in violent criminal activity, such as gun violence and auto theft. The selection of successful projects  is currently underway.

Transport Canada

• Work with public safety partners to identify high-risk Port facilities and conduct targeted security assessments for potential vulnerabilities.
  • Revise and validate security plans for high-risk container facilities.

Status as of May 2025

• The targeted security assessments are complete, along with the security plan revisions and follow-up inspections to verify compliance.
• The cargo security portion of marine facility security assessments will be updated for future reviews of all container terminals, as part of their regular recertification process.

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED)

• Leverage existing programs to support innovation solutions for vehicle protection.

Status as of May 2025

• In March 2025, through the Innovative Solutions Canada program, Transport Canada awarded grants for 8 projects, valued at up to $150,000 each, to Canadian small and medium sized companies to develop proof-of-concept innovations that will deter and prevent vehicle theft. Projects are underway and include smart phone-based security, AI assisted locking devices and sensors with gesture recognition technologies.
• Phase 1 final reports, which are expected in early fall 2025, will enable sponsoring departments to evaluate and determine which recipients are eligible to participate under phase 2 of the challenge. Up to two recipients may receive up to $1 million in funding to build a functional prototype. Phase 2 projects are expected to commence at the end of the 2025-2026 fiscal year and conclude in the 2026-2027 fiscal year.  

Ontario

Manitoba

Status as of May 2025

• The Winnipeg Police Service (WPS) continues to operate the Commercial Stolen Auto Unit (CSAU). This unit was developed over 15 years ago to combat the growing issue of auto theft in the city. The CSAU works closely with other agencies, including Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI), with a focus on preventing thefts, investigating incidents, and providing support to those affected by stolen vehicles.

Legislation, regulations, and governance

Justice

• Amend the Criminal Code to provide additional tools for law enforcement and prosecutors to address auto theft. These include:
  • New criminal offences related to auto theft involving the use of violence or links to organized crime; possession or distribution of an electronic device for the purposes of committing auto theft; and laundering proceeds of crime for the benefit of a criminal organization.
  • A new aggravating factor at sentencing if an offender involved a young person in committing an offence under the Criminal Code.
• Examine effectiveness of legislative tools to respond to auto theft and develop new responses if required.
• Announcing the government’s intention to amend the Criminal Code to strengthen bail and sentencing laws stricter to respond to the severity of auto theft, break and enter, extortion, and arson crimes committed by repeat, violent, and organized crime offenders as part of the 2024 Fall Economic Statement.

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

• Amend the Radiocommunication Act to regulate the sale, distribution, and importation of radio devices used for auto theft.

Status as of May 2025

• ISED continues to examine consultation comments and subsequent feedback from industry and law enforcement agencies on radio devices used for auto theft and is evaluating potential approaches to effectively regulate these devices.

Canada Border Services Agency

• Review existing legislation and regulations, such as the Customs Act, with a view to:
  • enhancing compliance with export controls
  • increasing accountability for all partners and facility operators involved in export operations
  • increasing penalties for non-compliance and false reporting
  • benefiting from international best practices
  • assessing legal authorities to ensure export regulations are effective for law enforcement.
• Introduce legislative amendments and regulations to compel rail and port operators to provide adequate accommodation for the examination for exported goods by CBSA officers.

Status as of May 2025

• The CBSA, in partnership with the Department of Justice, continues to review its legislative and regulatory frameworks in line with the commitment.
• A review of reporting obligations and compliance measures is in progress to ensure that CBSA has the necessary tools, laws, and regulations to detect stolen vehicles before they are exported.

Transport Canada

• Modernize the Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standards to ensure they consider technological advancements to deter and prevent auto theft.

Status as of May 2025

• Transport Canada is preparing a regulatory amendment to update the standards for immobilizers in the Motor Vehicle Safety Regulations. The proposed amendment is anticipated to be published in the Canada Gazette, Part I in the fall of 2025.
• Transport Canada continues to consult with stakeholders in the development of the proposed regulations.

Ontario

Manitoba

Status as of May 2025

• In April 2024, the Government of Manitoba enacted The Body Armour and Fortified Vehicle Control Amendment Act to prohibit the use of aftermarket hidden compartments in vehicles, which are typically added to vehicles for the purpose of concealing controlled substances, weapons, and cash proceeds of crime during transport.
• Additionally, in April 2024, Manitoba introduced The Unexplained Wealth Act (Criminal Property Forfeiture Act and Corporations Act Amended) to allow law enforcement to better target organized crime groups who profit from crime. The Act requires corporations to disclose their beneficial owners and strengthens law enforcement’s ability to confiscate the proceeds of crime.