From December and the end of March, police examined about 400 containers at the Port of Montreal and realized close to 600 stolen vehicles, most from the Toronto area. The process exposed how Canada’s second-largest port has developed into a key transportation hub for stolen vehicle exports. Police say it is because of the port’s tactical location and huge container volume. Although, authorities say they are doing all they can to halt the auto theft, experts say jurisdictional limits, a deficiency of personnel, and organized crime are hindering the process.
Bryan Gast an Ontario Provincial Police investigator for more than 20 years, said stolen automobiles are crammed in shipping containers in the Toronto area, presenting falsified documents, including customs declarations indicating the cargo is genuine, and then transported to the port by truck or rail. Apart from its location, the total volume of goods moving through the port is used by criminals. The previous year, around 1.7 million containers passed through the Port of Montreal, together with 70% of Canada’s legal vehicle exports, as informed by port authorities. Roughly a million more containers than Canada’s next two largest East Coast ports collectively.
The Port of Montreal informed that it works strictly with police and border services, but port representatives can open containers only to save lives or avoid environmental damage, said spokeswoman Renee Larouche. An excess of 800 police officers from an assortment of agencies have admission cards to enter the port and, if they have a permit, open containers, Larouche said. However, in customs-controlled zones of the port, only border officers can examine containers without a permit.
Three-quarters of the automobiles detained during Project Vector were shipped from Ontario, as well as 125 from the Peel Region, which has developed into the province’s car burglary capital, according to local police. Patrick Brown, the mayor of the Peel Region city of Brampton, said the recently announced $28 million in federal funding for the Canada Border Services Agency should be used immediately to buy electronic scanner for the Montreal port along with the two Toronto-area shipping centers where containers are transferred from trucks to trains.
During Project Vector, Peel Police said their entree to containers at the port is restricted by CBSA’s “very limited resources,” Cst. Tyler Bell-Morena wrote in an email. The CBSA wouldn’t say what percentage of containers are scanned every year, but Annie Beausejour, the agency’s local director general for Quebec, said all containers identified by police are examined by border agents.
This year, the CBSA has detained 300 stolen vehicles from Toronto-area rail yards, and last year it recovered 1,200 stolen vehicles at the Montreal port. But port seizures are a “last resort,” she added, it’s vital to recover stolen vehicles before they arrive at the shipping docks.
The lack of resources in Montreal is characteristic of port cities worldwide, said Anna Sergi, a criminology lecturer at the University of Essex in the UK who studies organized crime, in a new interview. Customs activities are focused on import, not export. Export is not a feasible area to invest in because it is someone else’s problem, she said.
Organized crime has long existed in Montreal, she said. The West End Gang, Montreal’s “Irish mafia,” as well as the Italian mafia have both been tangled in drug importation corrupt customs agents and port workers. Insp. Dominique Cote of the Montreal police said we have no data to believe that the Port of Montreal has been penetrated by organized crime, or is the reason these vehicles are found in Montreal. Brown said he’s doubtful that border agents can do more — or that organized crime is part of the reason Montreal’s port is so common with criminals.
