More than 500 charges in chop shop bust
‘Cars chopped up and sold out of Niagara,’ investigator says
ST. CATHARINES — Many of the vehicles involved in what police describe as an elaborate chop shop and fraud ring busted Wednesday rolled through Niagara.
Six men, including a Niagaraon-the-lake resident, face more than 500 charges in connection with illegally assembled autos.
A joint forces operation launched in 2009 between Niagara Regional Police, Toronto Police and OPP — dubbed Project Enterprise — uncovered a theft and fraud ring involving as many as 140 vehicles, police said Thursday during a press conference in Toronto.
Many of the vehicles were stolen and patched together using wrecks before being sold, said NRP Det. Const. Dave Marynuik.
“They were brought here to be chopped up and sold out of Niagara,” he said.
In June, police raided the Auto Enterprise yard in Niagara- ontheLake and seized parts and vehicles estimated to be worth $5 million.
Police said the chop shop scheme involved a few different scams, including the creation of so-called Frankenautos.
Marynuik explained that in some cases, the culprits would get a stolen high- end vehicle and buy two or more wrecks of the same make and model. They would then chop the stolen vehicle in half or quarters before piecing it together with parts from the junkers.
Not only does that make it difficult for law enforcement to detect the stolen vehicle, it also milks more profit out of the theft.
The practice makes the auto extremely unsafe, said NRP Sgt. Dave Shennan. When the vehicles are pieced together, it compromises safety sensors, airbags and the overall structural integrity of the vehicle.
As part of the racket, he said, fake structural inspections were done, fraudulently approving the vehicles as safe.
In other cases, unsuspecting people bought vehicles that were stolen and had VIN numbers replaced with ones taken from junkyard cars.
The officers said the Ministry of Transportation is sending letters to people who they believe own the Frankenautos. They said it’s important they get the vehicles re-inspected to ensure they are safe.
Marynuik said most of the vehicles police have traced were bought by people outside the region. The vast majority of the stolen vehicles were taken from the Greater Toronto Area.
Toronto Police Insp. Gord Jones said police are concerned about the structural integrity of the autos..
Last June, officers searched a number of salvage yards and auto repair shops in Toronto and Niagara, then focused on the trail and sale of chopped cars into the Toronto area and the bogus structural inspections and registrations.
Toronto Police said many of the cars were sent to Toronto, where two men certified by the Ministry of Transportation to be structural appraisers approved them.
A licensed independent insurance broker would also certify the vehicles.
Auto theft costs Canada about $1 billion in losses to insurance and other related costs, Jones said.
Six people — five in Toronto and one in Niagara-on-the-lake — were arrested Wednesday and Thursday.
In Toronto Thursday, police displayed a 525i BMW auto seized in Ottawa last summer. The front end came from a wreck imported from the U. S. last summer, while the back end was from a stolen car.
Toronto traffic Det. Const. Carl Anderson said there were no air bags installed in the car and he believes if it was involved in a highway-speed crash it would have broken apart.
Further, anyone in the car would has suffered severe injuries if not death, he said.
Niagara resident George Tsigirlash, 42, was charged with two counts of possession of property obtained by crime and two counts of fraud over $5,000 in June. This week, he was charged with a further 10 counts of possession of stolen property over $5,000, three counts of fraud over $5,000 and one count of breach of recognizance.