Stolen vehicle registration programs and proposed harsh penalties in Ontario

Ford government Tough penalties will be introduced for thieves who steal legal vehicle identification numbers and apply them to stolen vehicles in a bid to combat a growing problem of car theft, Global News has learned.

While different levels of government spent hundreds of millions trying to bring down this attack car theft Following the crime wave, politicians have also been warned about a second layer of crime targeting a vehicle’s unique 17-character identification number, known as the VIN.

The code, which contains information about a vehicle’s make, model, year and place of manufacture and is widely considered a fingerprint for automobiles, is increasingly a target for thieves trying to legitimize a stolen vehicle.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada said the “re-VINing” process was “particularly pronounced” in Ontario and called on the Ford government to implement a series of reforms.

Internal government documents obtained by Global News show that the Ford government is keeping a close eye on the issue.

According to government documents, ServiceOntario investigated 615 cases of fraudulent vehicle registrations over a 14-month period in 2023 and 2024, requiring new tools for police officers to target the growing problem.

The Ford government is now planning to introduce legislation that would create a new Road Traffic Act offense for knowingly providing a false vehicle identification number to the Department for Transport; this includes possible fines and prison time for convicted fraudsters.

“We are working on legislation that will introduce some of the harshest penalties for the effects of re-VINing,” Transport Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said at a press conference on Sunday.

While the Minister did not provide detailed information, internal documents show the penalties in question:

• Fines of $50,000 to $75,000 will be imposed for the first offense and $75,000 to $100,000 for the second offense.
• Up to six months imprisonment
• Suspension of driver’s license for up to one year

The state initially considered a much lower penalty of $5,000 to $25,000 and then significantly increased that penalty in the final legislation, according to government slides.

While the strengthened laws are designed to act as a deterrent, it is unclear whether the Ford government will seek to implement preventative measures that have seen positive effects in other states.

In 2021, while Caroline Mulroney was still Minister of Transportation, the province began consulting on how to improve Ontario’s assigned VIN program.

While the Ministry of Transport requires an affidavit to be issued an identification number, the state has asked for feedback on whether it should introduce an investigation system that would charge fees to applicants.

A summary of the proposal pointed to Alberta and Saskatchewan using third-party investigators to complete a detailed review of the vehicle and its history before assigning the applicant a VIN at a cost of $100 to $500.

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“Alberta and Saskatchewan reported significant improvements in the integrity of their assigned VIN programs, including the recovery of stolen vehicles, after initiating third-party investigations into their assigned VIN programs,” the proposal said.

Meanwhile, sources told Global News the government has quietly made a half-dozen “mechanical changes” at ServiceOntario to target VIN-related fraud in an effort to close loopholes.

But the exact details of the changes are closely guarded for “operational security reasons” to ensure fraud detection measures are not made public.

NDP MPP Jennifer French also called for an overhaul of the province’s VIN database following a series of police crackdowns on VIN-related fraud.

In one case, Toronto police charged a ServiceOntario employee who allegedly issued “legitimate-looking vehicle registrations” in order to “resell stolen vehicles and effectively pass them off as legal.”

“We should expect any VIN on record to be legitimate,” French told Global News. “We should not question the legitimacy of the VIN database”

French called for clarity on how the fraud detection process at ServiceOntario will flag a potential case of re-VINing and strengthen the internal audit system.

“It’s a work in progress at best, or a mess at worse,” French said of the ServiceOntario inspection system. “We need to clean this up and make sure the VIN database has integrity.”

The Insurance Bureau of Canada has called on the Ford government to take additional preventive measures, such as restricting public access to detailed vehicle information reports that may include the unique VIN code, and has asked the federal government to create a national VIN database.

The state is expected to introduce its legislation on Nov. 4.

© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.