Barrie Police and South Simcoe Police are celebrating a joint investigation that resulted in the largest stolen vehicle recovery in either service’s history, but officials acknowledge similar busts may become harder to pull off moving forward.
Known as Project Starter, the three-month investigation culminated in the recovery of 40 stolen vehicles from within and outside Canada, police announced Thursday at the Barrie Simcoe Emergency Services Campus.
The joint operation between Barrie Police, South Simcoe Police and the Équité Association recovered vehicles including Honda CR-Vs, Toyota Tundras, Lexus RXs, Ford F-150s and one Lamborghini, with a combined estimated value exceeding $3 million.
Barrie Police say investigators worked with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to identify shipping containers in the Toronto and Montreal areas containing 19 stolen vehicles. CBSA intelligence officers also identified additional stolen vehicles in overseas shipping containers, leading to the recovery of 21 more vehicles at ports in the Bahamas, Spain and Ghana.
The vehicles had been reported stolen from locations across Ontario, including Simcoe County, York Region, Toronto, Peel Region, Halton Region and Niagara Region.
With assistance from the Équité Association, York Regional Police and the RCMP, the vehicles are now being repatriated to Canada before being returned to insurance companies.
As a result of the investigation, officers from the joint Prevent Auto Thefts (PAT) unit arrested a 31-year-old Brampton man on Apr. 24. He was charged with trafficking property obtained by crime and possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000.
“This success, both here and abroad, is the direct outcome of coordinated enforcement efforts, intelligence sharing and our collective commitment to public safety,” said Abeid Morgan, acting director of the CBSA’s intelligence and investigations operations division for the Greater Toronto Area.
Police say efforts are underway to notify registered owners whose vehicles have been recovered.
While Project Starter marked the largest recovery in either service’s history, the joint PAT unit has investigated 814 stolen vehicle cases, laid 401 criminal charges and made 102 stolen vehicle recoveries since 2024.
“Results like these prove a simple truth: when you back our police, you get results,” said Zee Hamid, Ontario’s associate solicitor general for auto theft and bail reform.
Much of that work was supported by a provincial PAT grant, which provided Barrie and South Simcoe police with $1.8 million to combat and prevent auto thefts in the region.
However, that funding expired on Apr. 1 and will not be renewed, making it more difficult for the joint operation to continue at the same level.
“This funding gave our services the ability to move beyond reactive policing and invest in proactive enforcement, prevention and intelligence-led investigations,” South Simcoe Police Chief John Van Dyke said. “It also allowed our services to invest in public education and crime prevention initiatives aimed at helping residents better protect their vehicles.”
The funding allowed the services to purchase specialized surveillance equipment, GPS tracking technology and enhanced crime analysis tools that helped investigators identify organized criminal networks and track stolen vehicles across jurisdictions.
Without the funding, busts with recoveries at the scale of Project Starter will be hard to come by.
"That's going to be very difficult to do," Van Dyke told Barrie360. "Grants like that allow us to funnel resources into areas like this type of unit and then backfill with new hires and also purchase technology to help the investigations."
Barrie Police Chief Rich Johnston commended his service's collaboration with their South Simcoe counterparts, but recognized that more will have to be done without grant funding.
"We will leverage our current resources as effectively as possible," he told Barrie360. "At the end of the day, when you're able to have those funds to support targeted approaches, it's always better. But we recognize there's many competing interests."
The joint PAT unit's resources and responsibilities will be reabsorbed into each police service.
Johnston says that with the financial and resource-based limitations on what police can do it's imperative that residents do all they can to prevent auto theft.
"[The stolen vehicle recovery results are] satisfactory, but what's more satisfactory if [the vehicle] not stolen in the first place," he told Barrrie360.
To mitigate the risk of becoming a victim of auto theft, Équité recommends using a layered approach including simple steps like keeping doors locked, installing visible or audible anti-theft devices, using vehicle immobilizers, and investing in tracking systems.
There's also Faraday bags or pouches, used to block electromagnetic signals from more modern key fobs, which residents can get from police stations.
"They do work," Johnston says. "Just move [the key fob] as far away from the door as possible, but leave it in that Faraday bag. It works and it will reduce the theft of your car."
Faraday bags designed for fobs can be picked up at from either the Barrie Police Service or South Simcoe Police stations.
