MANDEL: Inside job at ServiceOntario helped put stolen cars back on the road
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It’s a fascinating look inside the auto theft epidemic that operates in the GTA — many of us assume that most of the hot vehicles go straight from driveways to shipping containers and eager overseas customers.
But a court case this week in Brampton reveals a different route: an inside job where a ServiceOntario clerk and a Vaughan body shop owner worked together to put stolen vehicles back on GTA streets.
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Eric Johnson, who operated Prexco Autohub on Freshway Dr. in Vaughan, and ServiceOntario operator Tonisha Baird, who worked in Brampton, were found guilty of conspiring to traffic stolen vehicles, possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000 and concealing ownership through fraudulent revinning schemes. Johnson was also convicted of trafficking a stolen Range Rover and Baird of breach of trust by an official.
“Auto theft is a serious crime that affects all the people of Ontario. For victims of auto theft, there is stress, anxiety, fear, and financial cost that comes with discovering that their car has been pilfered from their driveway. For the rest of society, there is the latent worry that their car may be next or, worse, they may be the victim of associated crimes like gun violence or home invasions,” wrote Superior Court Justice Ranjan Agarwal in a judgment released Tuesday.
“The Crown has proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Baird and Johnson played a role in this crime epidemic,” he said. “Baird and Johnson are car thieves.”
In 2020, the OPP discovered one of the suspects driving a vehicle that had been “revinned”– its true vehicle identification number (VIN) had been replaced by another. Further investigation found several revinned vehicles had been registered by the same ServiceOntario operator in Brampton: Baird.
“Baird used her position of trust as a front-line ServiceOntario worker to allow … Johnson to register vehicles that had been stolen and revinned,” the judge said.
Baird, 29 at the time, was one of four ServiceOntario employees charged during Project Myra, a two-year, multi-police force investigation which announced in July 2022 that it had uncovered several auto theft networks responsible for fraudulently modifying stolen vehicle identification numbers and then putting them back on the market or for use by criminals.
She quit ServiceOntario on April 4, 2022. Three months later, she was arrested while driving an Audi SUV Q3 she’d purchased from Johnson that had been stolen from its owner in York Region in August 2021, Argawal wrote, and now had a different VIN.
Hers was one of 214 stolen vehicles — worth more than $12 million — that the OPP announced they’d recovered during their project.
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On Johnson’s lot, police found a Range Rover that had been stolen on Oct. 1, 2021, revinned with a fake VIN never used by its manufacturer and “wrapped” in white vinyl to change its colour from red.
“On Oct. 14, two weeks after it was stolen, Johnson applied to register the Range Rover with the fraudulent VIN to 2795178 Ontario Inc. Baird did the transaction,” Argawal found.
Agarwal found Johnson guilty of possession of property obtained by crime of a value exceeding $5,000.
He also convicted him of trafficking in property obtained by crime of a value exceeding $5,000 for brokering the $20,000 sale of a Range Rover Velar stolen in November 2021 and later seized by police in June 2022. He was acquitted of trafficking four other vehicles.
Agarwal convicted Baird of breach of trust by an official. “In many cases, usually involving (two other men) and Johnson, she neglected her duty. And, in every one of these cases, the vehicles were stolen and revinned,” he wrote. “The only reasonable inference from all the evidence is that Baird intentionally accepted incomplete or unsupported paperwork in furtherance of a revinning scheme being perpetrated by (the two men) or Johnson.”
She was also convicted with Johnson of conspiracy to traffic in property obtained by crime.
“Baird used her position of trust as a front-line ServiceOntario worker to allow … Johnson to register vehicles that had been stolen and revinned,” Agarwal wrote.
“Though the Crown hasn’t proven that she knew that all the vehicles were stolen or revinned, she’s guilty of conspiring with Johnson to traffic two vehicles and hide their ownership, including a vehicle that she bought from Johnson.”
Allowing the stolen cars to hide in plain sight.
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