Canada Has Become The “Car Theft Capital Of The World”, Interpol Warns

This summer, Interpol ranked Canada among the top 10 worst countries for car thefts out of 137, a “remarkable” achievement given Canada’s data integration with Interpol only began in February, according to the BBC.

After the cars are stolen, they are “either used to carry out other violent crimes, sold domestically to other unsuspecting Canadians, or shipped overseas to be resold,” the BBC wrote.

Since integrating the Canadian Police Information Centre’s stolen vehicle data with INTERPOL’s database in February 2024, over 1,500 stolen Canadian vehicles have been detected globally, Interpol wrote in May.

The RCMP’s database, which tracks around 150,000 stolen vehicles, now helps identify over 200 stolen cars weekly, primarily at international entry ports.

The BBC noted that the Insurance Bureau of Canada declared car theft a “national crisis” after insurers paid out over C$1.5bn in vehicle theft claims last year. Police have issued public bulletins on preventing theft, while some Canadians are installing trackers and private security measures, such as retractable bollards.