Strange driving cases, cocaine pizza top 2024's list of wacky crimes

Article content

Unusual, even wacky 2024 crime-related incidents included strange driving cases In Ontario — one involving a fake passenger.

In other weird cases, pizza side orders resulted in major drug busts in Germany, and a Calgary man was accused of trying to drum up business by attaching small amounts of cocaine to business cards.

PASSENGER SEAT FAKERY

It’s not loneliness that prompts solitary drivers to install bogus passengers before driving in lanes requiring companions, police say.

Case in point: A 21-year-old motorist stopped by the OPP near Burlington on Sept. 6 was accused of arranging a winter coat to look like a person beside her while in a high-occupancy (HOV) lane on the QEW.

No details of her fine were released, but such charges can cost an errant driver $110, plus three demerit points.

To encourage carpooling, private vehicles in HOV lanes must be occupied by at least two people, government regulations state. Exceptions include buses, licensed taxis, airport limousines, emergency vehicles, vehicles with Ontario green licence plates and motorcycles.

Previous phony passenger dress-up cases have involved what appeared to be human companions.

In 2017, the OPP reported a driver beside a large dressed-up doll. Two years earlier, two well-clothed, seatbelt-wearing mannequins were spotted in a pickup truck driven by a Toronto man in an HOV lane when stopped by the OPP.

South of the border, in August 2023, a van driver accompanied by a mannequin with realistic tattoos, a moustache and a straw lifeguard hat faced a (US)$400 fine after being pulled over by a California Highway Patrol officer.

Recommended video

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Try refreshing your browser, or
tap here to see other videos from our team.

Play Video

ACCUSED DRUNK PARKED AT POLICE STATION

A Toronto teenager was arrested last August outside the OPP’s Central Regional Headquarters in Orillia after he was found asleep behind the wheel of a vehicle containing several open alcohol containers.

Operating a motor vehicle while impaired was one of several related charges the 18-year-old faced. His driver’s license was suspended for 90 days and the vehicle was impounded for a week.

OLYMPICS TOO FAST FOR DRIVER

Enjoying sports on a portable phone while driving is a major no-no, a motorist was told after being stopped in Peterborough, Ont.

The driver’s vehicle was clocked at 128 kilometres an hour in an 80 km/h zone last Aug. 1, the OPP reported.

His speeding offence was accompanied by a charge of driving with a handheld entertainment device.

An officer who stopped the vehicle reported the accused motorist was watching “Olympic horse jumping” on his dashboard-mounted cell phone.

“Support the athletes, but not at the expense of others on the road,” an OPP social media posting urged.

PIZZAS CAME WITH DOPE SIDES: POLICE

Suspicious food inspectors tipped off police in Germany about an extra side dish that helped make a restaurant’s pizzas unusually popular.

Drug squad officers who staked out the Duesseldorf eatery reported cocaine was added when customers placed a No. 40 order.

“That was one of the best-selling pizzas,” the Associated Press news service quoted criminal director Michael Graf von Moltke telling reporters in late October.

After the manager was arrested at his apartment, following the reported seizure of 1.6 kilograms of the illegal drug, plus 400 grams of cannabis and currency worth (US)$289,000, he was released after several days.

When officers learned that more No. 40 orders were being sold, they launched a major investigation that resulted in the arrest of 15 suspects, including the accused head of a drug supply chain. Two cannabis plantations in a nearby city were also raided.

As for the pizza manager, he was arrested a second time while allegedly trying to leave Germany, police said. Based on the country’s privacy rules, no names were released.

“FREE” COCAINE SAMPLES?

A Calgary man was arrested early last February after being accused of distributing “free” small bags of cocaine with business cards.

Bearing a printed name — a suspected pseudonym — they were spotted on Dec. 24, 2023 by officers patrolling a downtown casino, city police said.

Following an investigation that took several weeks, a 30-year-old motorist was stopped in his truck, after which officers reported seizing 59.6 grams of cocaine in small packages at his home, a digital weigh scale, $1,280 cash and business cards inscribed “Alex Lee.”

The resident was charged with two counts of drug trafficking, one of possessing drugs for the purpose of trafficking, and three counts of possessing crime proceeds under $5,000.

SOLE SEARCHER GUILTY

Smelling shoes after sneaking onto several private properties in Greece resulted in a man being convicted of disturbing his neighbours in Sindos, a small northern town.

The 28-year-old was arrested by police before dawn last Oct. 8 after a resident reported him sniffing a family’s shoes that were left to air out overnight in their front yard.

Neighbours testified that despite asking him to cease his strange nocturnal visits, and asking his family for help over several months, he continued, but was never aggressive.

Claiming embarrassment, the shoe-sniffer told a judge in a court in Thessaloniki that he could not explain his obsession, but never intended to break the law or hurt anyone.

A suspended one-month prison sentence was imposed, with an order for him to attend therapy sessions.

SMUGGLING PLOT TURNED TURTLE

A Canadian resident from Hong Kong faces up to 10 years in prison and a (US)$250,000 fine for trying to smuggle protected eastern United States turtles into Canada from Vermont.

Wan Yee Ng, 41, was arrested near an Airbnb rental residence on June 28 with a duffle bag containing 29 eastern box turtles, a U.S. Border Patrol agency release stated. The turtles “were individually wrapped in socks to protect their shells, and so they could not move.”

Ng was allegedly about to take them across Lake Wallace to Quebec in an inflatable kayak, according to authorities.

In a U.S. district court in Burlington, Vt., she pleaded guilty in mid-October to violating the Endangered Species Act by attempting to smuggle turtles obtained in New Jersey to sell them in Hong Kong for the illegal global pet market.

A subspecies of the common box turtle, they could have been sold for about (US)$1,000 each, especially in China, officials said. Permitted as pets in the U.S., before they can be legally taken out of the country, export permits are required.

Ordered held in custody until sentencing this month, Ng entered the U.S. from Canada last May on a visitor visa.

According to a federal court affidavit, U.S. border officers spotted her after the RCMP tipped them about a ‘co-conspirator’ – believed to be her husband — paddling across the lake from Quebec in an inflatable craft. Lake Wallace is a notorious border crossing route for drug smugglers and human traffickers.

The eastern box turtle is an official state reptile of North Carolina and Tennessee, and is considered endangered in Maine.

More than 24,000 freshwater turtles were intercepted by U.S. officials between 1998 and 2021, The Times of India reported.