The announcement follows a summit to address auto theft convened by the federal government months earlier
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The mobile X-ray scanner unveiled in Mississauga on Sunday will soon be making its way around the Toronto area, screening for stolen vehicles in shipping hubs and warehouses the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) investigates.
The $3.5 million scanner will examine shipping containers leaving Canada as part of larger effort to tackle auto theft across the country. The plan incorporates intelligence sharing between law enforcement agencies and “focuses on disrupting, dismantling, and prosecuting the organized criminal groups behind auto theft,” the CBSA announced.
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“Auto theft is impacting Canadians, particularly in our urban centres. It increasingly involves organized crime groups, who are using the proceeds of those thefts to fund other illegal activities,” the statement said.
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The announcement follows a summit to address auto theft convened by the federal government months earlier.
Here’s how the units operate and how it will be used.
How does the mobile scanner work?
The Heimann Cargo Vision Mobile scanner unveiled at CBSA’s regional headquarters in Mississauga Sunday afternoon looks similar to a trailer and can be towed from location to location using a rig. Videos of similar scanners at work show an articulated arm extending out of the trailer. Large shipping containers and conveyances can pass under the arm to be screened.
The machine releases a high energy radiation that can penetrate steel several inches thick. It can image the entire container to identify the presence of a vehicle within.
A version that looks similar to the new machine is capable of scanning anywhere from 25 to 100 trucks an hour depending on the scanning mode used, according to its manufacturer, Smiths Detection. The unit will require a trained officer to operate.
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Where will it be used?
The scanner will begin deploying in regions across the GTA this summer with the purpose of intercepting stolen vehicles before they get shipped overseas. CBSA has said it would conduct “daily export examination and select containers of interest for secondary examination at docks or warehouses.”
The CBSA acts on all tips it receives from police and also “conducts searches based on its own intelligence,” the CBSA noted.
In a statement to the National Post, a CBSA spokesperson said the agency “does not disclose the detection equipment capabilities of individual ports of entry or details of specific targeting, enforcement, intelligence and investigative techniques, as it may render them ineffective.”
“The CBSA is currently implementing a training for local officers,” the agency added.
What happens if a stolen vehicle is found?
Once a container is identified for a search, “the CBSA will confirm via police partners if the vehicle is stolen and then detain the vehicle, and hand it over to local police for investigation,” the agency said.
So far in 2024, the CBSA has recovered “1,300 stolen vehicles in railyards and ports, including 452 in the GTA,” the agency said in a release.
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What took so long?
While police chiefs in the GTA have asked for the this technology, change had been slow at the federal level Brampton mayor Patrick Brown said. “It took too long for anyone in Ottawa to pay attention, the opposition or the government, but they are now, and that’s the good news,” he told CP24. “They’re late to the game, but they’re here,” he noted.
In the interview, he added that additional mobile scanning units will be in “each of the rail lines in the GTA and multiple scanners at the port of Montreal.”
In 2023, insurance claims for auto theft hit $1.5 billion in Canada, according to Insurance Bureau of Canada. Of that figure, $1 billion of the claims were from Ontario.
What else is the government doing?
Ottawa has proposed new amendments to the Criminal Code to impose stiffer penalties for auto theft and related crimes. These include imposing a maximum sentence of 14 years for auto theft linked to violent crime or a criminal organization. Laundering proceeds from auto theft could also be punishable for a maximum of 14 years.
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