Levy: Carjacking is organized crime, not property crime, Toronto police say

A Toronto police insider says there should be more consequences for repeat carjackers and carjackers.

A special speaker True North As Conservative Party leader Pierre Polievre makes a series of announcements to tackle the car theft crisis, a police officer says one big problem is that our lawmakers treat it as a “property crime” rather than an “organized crime”.

Toronto police will speak at a Liberal summit on car theft and organized crime in Ottawa on Thursday.

Polieuvre, if elected prime minister, has promised to step up carjacking and surveillance of goods shipped from the port of Montreal.

The Conservative leader noted that insurance premiums have increased significantly as a result of car thefts in Canada, which has led to higher rates.

A Toronto Police Service insider says 50% of car thefts are committed by young offenders. About 40% of young offenders are released.

There should be serious consequences other than arrest and release because these kids have “big money” they can steal up to four cars a night and make $500 to $1,500 per car.

Unlike traditional crime syndicates, it's all done on applications on the “dark web” and two guys show up at an innocent homeowner's address to steal a car, an insider said.

The application tells someone else to deliver it to the port of Montreal, often for delivery to Africa.

“It's very complicated because of the technology and the dark web,” he says.

They need to make a bigger impact on the front end by calling it organized crime and ensuring better tracking of shipments, the insider said.

Add to that the response time of the Toronto Police Service, which gives the thief time to come back and retrieve the cell phone he dropped in the driveway and attack the homeowner.

Right now, they're between 19 and 22 minutes for priority calls — the most critical life-threatening calls, he says.

“(Priority 1 calls) are anything that's life-threatening or your life is in danger,” he says.

“That's the dilemma we have … it's just ridiculous,” he says, referring to the 2024 budget, which does not provide an inflationary increase to the TPS budget.

Violent crime in Toronto is set to increase by 18% in 2023, according to recent reports. In 2023 alone, hate crimes increased by 42% compared to the previous year.

The force is down by an average of 600 officers from 2010, including more than 600,000 illegal migrants and asylum seekers invited to live in sanctuary cities.

During the latest budget deliberations, police told Toronto city councilors they had up to 30 minutes to answer each of them, including in budget chief Shelley Carroll's chamber, police said.

But, according to former media reports, the police “deal with fear.”

He also told True North that they have participated in 493 (mostly anti-Israel) protests since October 7, raising an additional $8.5 million in damages.