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Teenage scouts cruise high-end GTA neighbourhoods and parking lots with shopping lists of vehicles they could never afford themselves.
They hope to make $75 to $100 for spotting a vehicle worth stealing: A Lexus RX, a Toyota Highlander, a Ram truck, a Honda CR-V, maybe a Range Rover.
Toronto has seen an auto theft boom since the beginning of the pandemic -- and these young scouts are a vital part of it.
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If criminals can't nab a vehicle from the driveway or parking lot, there's a danger they'll get more aggressive. The surging market for stolen cars helps explain a spate of home invasions and carjackings, police say.
Here's what we know.
Skills learned online
Established organized criminals moved big-time into auto theft in the early 2020s, hooking up with teens who sometimes learned their theft skills online.
The average age of Ontario car thieves is between 15 and 24 years old, Det. Insp. Scott Wade of the Ontario Provincial Police told the House of Commons on Public Safety and National Security committee last year.
It's not unheard of for 12-year-olds to be involved, and experienced cops say they wouldn't be shocked if the age sometimes drops even lower.
Some young thieves are in street gangs when they connect with adult organized crime groups. Others are independent.
"They're really just using the youths," Wade told the Star. "They search out disenfranchised youth. Bad guys know where to look."
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Devices such as reprogrammed key fobs enable the young thieves to enter vehicles and drive off with them.
Other times, thieves enter homes and demand the keys -- sometimes at gunpoint.
The money at play
A young thief stands to make from a few hundred dollars to $3,000 to $20,000 for actually taking a desirable target.
Stolen vehicles are passed over to a runner, who makes $500 to $1,000 to move a car to another spot to make sure it's not being followed by police, before it's driven to a port -- usually Montreal, sometimes Halifax -- or onto a train and exported overseas to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The market in those regions is what decides which vehicles are most desirable for thieves in the GTA -- hence the demand for Toyotas, Lexuses, Hondas and Range Rovers.
"It's organized crime," Wade said. "Somebody at the top giving direction to others."
The young scouts and teenage thieves are foot soldiers in a multibillion-dollar, international crime enterprise, police say. The scouts generally don't even know the names of the criminals at the top of the food chain they support.
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Former teen car thief Shane Dankoski, now in his late 30s, said he rose up in the organized crime world starting at age 13.
In time, he ran his own fleet of tow trucks.
He also branched off into drug distribution and importing, before ending up in prison for his part in a gangland attempted murder plot.
Car theft is what introduced him to serious organized criminals, he said.
"I would go around with some of the big guys," Dankoski said, adding he allowed thieves to stash stolen cars at his mother's house.
Older thieves would have him along for the ride, and then say, "Let's drop this car at your Mom's."
"In the beginning, I was kind of a little bit scared," he said. "I was a kid. The guys I was going around with, they were the professionals."
He said he was paid off in car parts, such as rims for wheels and stereo parts, and that he could sometimes make $1,000 off a vehicle.
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"My bedroom looked like Future Shop," he said.
A new generation of criminals
Police are concerned that vehicle theft is graduating a whole new generation of organized criminals.
Dankoski agreed, saying it introduced him to drug sellers and people involved in home invasions.
"Car theft goes hand in hand with everything," Dankoski said. "It's a trickle-down effect. Everybody just knows everybody."
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You kind of graduate on to the next thing, Dankoski said. "What's going to make you more money?"
This comes after major organized crime groups with global connections pushed hard to get into auto theft since the beginning of the pandemic.
They realize it's a high-reward, low-risk crime that can fund other businesses like drug, gun and human trafficking.
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The people at the top stand to make far more money than the scouts and kids doing the thefts.
The teens also take on a lot of the risk. When arrested, the young thieves are often "in possession of drugs, weapons (including firearms), and technological devices such as reprogrammed key fobs used to facilitate the theft of vehicles," Wade testified.
And many then get out of custody and do it again -- 40 per cent of them are out on bail, Wade said.
GTA in the GTA
Huw Williams, national spokesperson for the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association, told the House of Commons hearings in 2024 that vehicle thefts had increased by 300 per cent in the GTA since 2015.
However, thefts have dipped somewhat in 2025, according to a July survey released by Équité Association, an insurance group that tracks theft data.
The recent drop comes as Ottawa has pledged millions for new detection equipment at ports and police investment in joint projects.
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Still, the numbers remain high and the illegal trade forges on.
There are several reasons why auto theft has boomed, despite advances in auto security.
Experts say the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a disruption in supply chains for vehicles, and the constant threat of tariffs from the Trump administration only adds to the volatility.
"As automotive and steel tariffs continue to create uncertainty, the market for used and aftermarket parts may become more lucrative," a July 2025 report for Équité́ says.
Even a Leaf gets victimized
The market boom has been accompanied by an upswing in violence. Terri O'Brien, president and CEO at Équité Association, told the Ottawa hearings that Greater Toronto Area residents witnessed a 104 per cent increase in carjackings in 2023.
Toronto police Deputy Chief Robert Johnson told the hearings that almost 50 per cent of those arrested for carjacking in Toronto were repeat offenders, and that a third of them were young offenders.
At times, they even seem to make a game of it. Cmd. Yannick Desmarais of Montreal police testified about young people who "film themselves inside the vehicles while being followed by the police to make fun of the situation."
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One carjacking victim was former Maple Leafs hockey star Mitch Marner, who was driving a much sought-after Range Rover in 2022 when a Honda Civic blocked his way near The Queensway and Islington Avenue in Etobicoke. Two men with handguns jumped out and demanded his keys.
A third man with a knife pocketed a cellphone before they all drove away.
Not all of the victims are rich.
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"We're not going to arrest our way out of this epidemic that's ongoing right now."
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"We're not going to arrest our way out of this epidemic that's ongoing right now."
Pizza delivery driver Gurvinder Nath, 24, died after a physical altercation when he was swarmed in his Volkswagen Jetta during a carjacking in Mississauga in July 2023 near Britannia and Creditview Roads.
Across the country, a vehicle was stolen every five minutes, David Adams, president of Global Automakers of Canada, told the House of Commons hearings in 2024.
Toronto police Deputy Chief Johnson told the 2024 hearings that there were more than 12,000 vehicles stolen in Toronto alone in 2023.
That works out to a vehicle stolen every 40 minutes, for a total loss of $790 million in a year, according to Toronto Police statistics.
In Peel, the number comes to almost one vehicle theft per hour, Deputy Chief Nick Milinovich of Peel Regional Police testified.
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Sometimes, the number jumps to 1.5 vehicles per hour.
Amid such numbers, theft and violent robbery have become oddly normalized, especially in Toronto.
"What is alarming about this investigation is that the vehicle thefts were not simply carried out in the middle of the night on an unoccupied target vehicle," Wade said. "Many of these thefts involved violence, some with forceful entry into homes with demands that owners hand over the keys to their vehicles. The investigation involved armed robberies, posing a significant risk to public safety."
"Once on our Ontario roadways, these vehicles are recklessly driven, threatening public and officer safety," Wade continued. The problem is very complicated and far from a victimless property crime."
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