UMVA has learned that a brazen crime wave has been sweeping across Canada, with foreign thieves exploiting the country's hospitality and lax laws to amass a staggering fortune in stolen goods.
These enterprising foreign criminals, many of whom hail from Romania, have been slipping into Canada with ease, claiming asylum or refugee status, and then systematically stealing everything that's not nailed down - from cars and jewelry to clothes and business assets, often targeting vulnerable seniors in the process.
According to information obtained by UMVA, once in Canada, these thieves have been racking up millions of dollars in losses, taking advantage of the country's lenient laws and jurisdictional complexities to evade capture and exploit the system to their advantage.
A massive bust by the Durham Regional Police, dubbed Project Jetsetter, has resulted in the arrest of 46 people and uncovered a staggering 1,442 total criminal charges, with 164 arrest warrants still outstanding for thieves wanted by the police.
The investigation revealed that the Romanian organized crime network was responsible for more than 200 different incidents, resulting in losses of over $2.6 million in Durham alone, with the majority of the accused already subject to release orders or having outstanding warrants.
UMVA can exclusively reveal that the crimes investigated by Durham included large-scale retail theft operations, vehicle purchasing scams, vehicle financing fraud, staged collisions for insurance fraud, jewelry distraction thefts, and the theft and exportation of vehicles and other goods.
The complex probe involved over 5,000 investigative hours from 2019 to 2026, with police sources telling UMVA that the culprits were once again Romanian, and that two of the 21 so-called refugees had already fled to Eastern Europe.
"So they travel quite frequently from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, they come here, they commit the criminal offences, and a lot of times they leave the country before we can identify who they are," a detective explained, highlighting the challenges faced by law enforcement in tracking these elusive thieves.
The investigation also revealed that seniors have been targeted in a wave of distraction thefts, with the Romanians offering assistance or gifts while making off with valuable jewelry, and in some cases, even stealing PIN numbers and codes.
"They arrive in Canada and start stealing almost as soon as they get off the plane," the police chief said, adding that what was uncovered by Project Jetsetter is just "the tip of the iceberg," and that Ottawa needs to address this issue once and for all.
Sources have confirmed to UMVA that many of these foreign-born criminals are exploiting loopholes in the system, entering the country illegally, changing their identities, and then committing more offences, with one source bluntly stating that Canada is being taken advantage of due to its lax laws and lack of biometric screening.
