Montreal-area resident Zachary Siciliani discovered recently that his car had simply disappeared — likely in one of a rash of vehicle thefts in Canada.
The crime trend, which the Insurance Bureau of Canada has dubbed a “national crisis,” has seen stolen vehicles shipped through the busy Port of Montreal to overseas car lots for sale.
Siciliani told AFP there was no trace of a break-in at the scene, so he thinks thieves probably used a device that intercepts and copies the frequency of electronic key fobs used to open a car’s doors and start the engine, and just drove away with it.
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Thousands of vehicles have been stolen in major cities in Quebec and Ontario — the nation’s two most populous provinces — over the past several months.
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Most of the stolen vehicles are shipped through the Port of Montreal, according to Desmarais.
“Montreal is like a sieve,” said Georges Iny, director of The Automobile Protection Association, a consumer advocacy group.
Located on the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, Canada’s second-largest city is also one of the nation’s major Atlantic ports, “connecting eastern Canada and North America’s industrial heartland to more than 140 countries,” Iny said.