Police slam brakes on ‘low-level crime ring’

100 vehicles stolen, sold as scrap metal

Members of a “low-level crime ring” responsible for stealing 100 vehicles in six months to sell them at a metal recycling facility face almost 100 charges.

“They did a considerable amount of harm to the citizens of Ottawa given the numbers of vehicles, but they are low-level if you define level by the kind of vehicles they are stealing and the sophistication,” the lead investigator on the case said. He didn’t want his name used because some of his work is done undercover.

Police arrested 25-year-old Danny Schneider on Thursday. He faces 77 charges alone, including theft under and over $5,000, possession of property obtained by crime under and over $5,000, laundering the proceeds of crime and conspiracy to commit an indictable offence.

Police said five men and a woman will also be charged, but they have not yet been arrested.

The tip that clinched the investigation came from employees at Ottawa’s American Iron and Metal (AIM) recycling depot, who are trained to be on the look out for shady deals.

Mike McNally, 57, the depot’s operations manager said if a person hesitates or doesn’t want to give their information, AIM won’t accept the car.

“If we suspect a car is shady or has been stolen, we always call the police.”

In this case, the person showed their ID and had the car’s registration in the glove box. But, in the morning, the man in charge of assessing cars on the lot for resale part value “immediately knew something must be wrong,” said McNally. “It was shiny so, he thought, this car’s too good to scrap.”

AIM called the Ottawa Police Fraud Unit and the police asked to see the surveillance video of the person who brought in the car. They immediately recognized the person, said McNally, who noted that, if thieves thought about the matter logically, they wouldn’t bring cars to his lot in the first place.

The investigation was launched in September 2012 when police received a complaint from a company after staff spotted their stolen vehicle at an Ottawa metal recycling facility. The lead investigator said the group mainly targeted older minivans that were sold to the metal recycling facility.

Police said their investigation revealed that 100 stolen vehicles were brought to one location.

Police identified 52 of the 100 stolen cars brought to that location on surveillance video, but they didn’t retrieve evidence of those vehicles during a search warrant execution.