From Canada to Ghana: How Ghana has become stolen cars hub

In 2022, a Canadian couple reported to the police the shocking disappearance of their family’s Lexus from their Ontario residence.

Greg and Lynn Gannett found out about the stolen vehicle hours after it went missing. Their doorbell camera footage revealed the thief’s identity.

Police bluntly told them where the car was likely headed.

“It’s probably already on its way to Montreal, going to Africa or some other foreign country,” an officer told them.

 The police’s initial assessment proved accurate.

Months later, the EOCO conducted a raid on a suspected car dealership garage in Accra, meticulously recording the Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs) of the vehicles available for sale. The Gannetts’ Lexus was among the inventory, but as its stolen status had not yet been relayed to Interpol, EOCO had no legal grounds to confiscate it.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) later stumbled upon EOCO’s VIN report and reached out to The Fourth Estate, Philip Teye Agbove, to conduct follow-up investigations on the vehicles listed in Ghana.

Stolen cars in Accra

In 2023, Accra served as the backdrop for the CBS/The Fourth Estate investigations which revealed numerous stolen vehicles. Many of these cars had been seized by EOCO and National Security, while others were found in car sales markets (garages) and parking lots.

Members of the CBC investigative desk, David Common and Jared Thomas, teamed up with The Fourth Estate’s Philip Teye Agbove in August 2023 to work on the story.

When the team reached some dealership markets (garages), they found late-model vehicles, including Toyota Highlanders, Lexus RX350s, Honda CR-Vs, Land Rovers, and Mercedes, among others, all of which were featured on Canada’s most-stolen car list.

The workers, as expected, were confrontational. They tried to destroy the team’s camera, confronted the journalists, and denied knowledge of any car theft-related matter.

They also refused to provide access to the VINs of the vehicles for verification.

The Gannett’s Lexus, which the EOCO had earlier spotted at one of the garages, was not there. It had either been relocated to a different garage or, as EOCO suggested to the team, had already been sold.

Car stolen from Toronto found in Ghana

Len Green from Toronto’s car, which was stolen in 2022, was, however, confiscated by the EOCO in one of the car dealership garages in Accra. His details were found in the car, and the investigative team got in touch with him. Mr Green was stunned that his stolen car could be found on another continent.

Very often, vehicles stolen from Canada are found to still contain the insurance and registration documents of their original owners in the glove compartment.

In three years, Canada has allocated $51 million to combat auto theft, a problem the government says has surged by 14 percent in the year 2022 alone.

Auto theft has been described as a ‘national crisis’ in Canada, with nearly all stolen cars exported by organised crime gangs.

A report by the Canadian Financing and Leasing Association in 2021 revealed that Ontario alone witnessed over 27,000 vehicle thefts, translating into a car stolen approximately every 17 minutes.

In 2022, both law enforcement agencies and insurers reported an unprecedented billion-dollar worth of vehicle thefts in Canada.

This surge has put the country’s insurance industry on alert, warning of potentially higher premiums for the most targeted vehicles and the potential for some vehicles to become uninsurable.

According to police sources, the majority of these thefts are attributed to large established organised criminal groups based in Montreal, Canada. However, the lucrative nature of the activity has enticed other groups with less technical expertise to get involved.

“The rewards are very high and the risk is very low. We have anecdotal stories of people who have stolen cars, walked out of court and stolen another car in the same parking lot,” explained Deputy Chief, Nick Milinovich, of Peel Regional Police.

“From our perspective, it’s a lack of enforcement,” Michael Rothe of the Canadian Financing and Leasing Association told CBC News, and said Canada is finding it difficult to combat organised theft of vehicles for export.

This explains the reported increase in home invasions and violent incidents aimed at acquiring vehicles and their keys in Canada.

In Accra, the journalists uncovered numerous vehicles, some with Canadian license plates, often containing their provincial registration and insurance documents within the glove compartment.

EOCO’s operations

The EOCO said within two months, it seized over 40 cars shipped from Canada to Ghana.

During a motorcade ride with the EOCO during the investigations, the reporters observed a Honda CR-V vehicle with a Quebec license plate being driven in front of the team’s vehicle. The Quebec license plates are used in Canada and have a specific format and meaning.

The driver swiftly veered onto a side street, leading investigators to suspect that the car had been stolen, given that the model is one of the most frequently stolen.

Meanwhile, EOCO has urged the Canadian government to tighten its security services’ surveillance to halt the inflow of stolen cars into Ghana.

This, according to the EOCO, would strengthen the resolve of the two countries to fight the canker of shipping stolen cars into the country.

Although the vast majority of identified stolen vehicles EOCO confiscates originate from Canada, Abdulai Bashiru Dapilah, Deputy Director of the EOCO, said the agency has never received any communication from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the National Police Service of Canada for intelligence sharing and collaborative work to apprehend car thieves, like the United States of America does.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, an intelligence agency in the United States, routinely shares intelligence regarding stolen vehicles with Ghana’s EOCO.

“No Canadian agency has approached us directly or made a formal complaint directly,” he stated.

He revealed that his team of investigators, who confiscate stolen cars, are sometimes threatened by armed groups and appealed to the Canadian authorities to share intelligence and prevent the entry of these vehicles into foreign territories like Ghana

Modus operandi

The carjackers involved in this transnational auto theft ring are far from ordinary criminals. They are highly sophisticated, deploying advanced technology to bypass even the most secure vehicle systems.

One of their primary techniques involves manipulating the vehicle’s on-board diagnostics. It is a system typically used by mechanics to assess a car’s performance. By accessing a small port beneath the steering wheel, thieves can reprogram the car’s computer to accept a new key, effectively taking control of the vehicle within minutes.

Another increasingly common method is the CAN bus attack, which targets the vehicle’s internal communication network. Acting like a nervous system, the Controller Area Network (CAN) allows various car components to talk to each other.

Thieves exploit this by connecting to specific nodes from outside the vehicle, sending false signals that unlock doors and start the engine. The process is swift, silent, and in many cases, leaves no visible trace, making it even more difficult for victims and law enforcement to detect or respond in time.

Canadian authorities admit their systems are outdated. Federal theft-prevention regulations haven’t been updated since 2007, before the age of push-to-start ignitions and remote keyless entries.

According to Bryan Gast, of Équité Association, thieves can “easily exploit these vulnerabilities, which has led to this significant increase in stolen vehicles across Canada.”

The organization wants to compel manufacturers to install effective anti-theft devices in every new vehicle.