Auto theft in Canada fell sharply in 2025, but organized crime networks are adapting how they move stolen vehicles out of the country, keeping exports high, according to Bryan Gast (pictured), national vice-president, intelligence and investigations, at Équité Association.
Équité released its annual Top 10 Most Stolen Vehicles lists, and the Honda CR-V took the No. 1 spot by number of thefts in 2025, a ranking it also held in 2021 and 2022. On the theft frequency list, newly released luxury models led the way, with the Lexus TX Series stolen at a rate of more than 11% of insured vehicles.
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The lists come after Équité’s 2025 Auto Theft Trend Report showed an 18% year-over-year drop in auto theft across Canada. Gast said the decline doesn’t tell the whole story.
“Yes, we’ve had a reduction in auto thefts, but the vehicles that are being exported out of the country still remain high,” Gast told Insurance Business. “And that’s driven by organized crime.”
Organized crime groups stealing vehicles for export are “not letting up,” Gast said.
“And they’re not slowing down,” he said.
The networks are finding new ways to disguise stolen vehicles, Gast said. They re-VIN them before they leave the country, misdeclare them as cargo other than vehicles, or ship them through exit points other than the ports of Montreal and Halifax, which have traditionally been the main routes. The goal is to get the vehicles to overseas markets.
“It’s still a high-reward, low-risk crime,” Gast said.
The vehicles on Équité’s lists “reflect the types of vehicles that these criminals are after, [mainly] the newer model SUVs and pickup trucks,” he said.
Criminals are also changing how they get hold of vehicles in the first place, Gast said.
“We’ve seen an increase in fraud finance where they’re fraudulently financing these vehicles as a method of theft,” he said.
Many of the most stolen vehicles share keyless entry systems, he said, and the technology behind that convenience remains a weak point. “With most conveniences, come vulnerabilities,” Gast said.
Gast credited the drop in thefts to a coordinated response, starting with the Ontario government and followed by federal funding for police, the Canada Border Services Agency’s focus on auto theft, a provincial auto theft team and dedicated police resources.
“I’ve never seen the collaboration and cooperation that I’ve seen over the last few years,” he said.
But that response treats the problem after vehicles are stolen, Gast said.
“It is reactionary. Is it sustainable?” he said.
Prevention needs to be part of the conversation, because making vehicles harder to steal will reduce thefts, Gast said. As things stand, “it’s too easy to be able to steal a vehicle,” he said.
Heather Masterson, president and CEO of Équité, made the same point in the release, saying organized crime continues to profit from $900 million a year in stolen vehicles. “But enforcement alone won’t solve this,” she said.
According to Équité, 72% of Canadians polled believe anti-theft technology should be built into vehicles as standard rather than sold as an add-on, and 64% say they worry about their own safety and that of their families when it comes to auto theft.
Gast said the first priority is updating Canada’s vehicle security standard.
“Transport Canada is currently looking to modernize the current standard, which dates back almost 20 years now,” he said.
Today, “it’s up to each individual manufacturer to decide” how to secure their vehicles, as long as they meet the 2007 standard, Gast said. A modernized standard would mean all manufacturers building or selling new vehicles in Canada “would be held to the same security standard of their vehicles,” he said. Transport Canada is reviewing security standards in other countries to see how they could be adapted for Canada.
The second gap is the regulation of freight forwarders, the parties that arrange for cargo to move from Canada to its destination, Gast said. There is “still a gap there and a vulnerability” that allows stolen vehicles to leave the country, he said, and forwarders should face more scrutiny to ensure shipments are what their declarations say they are.
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Looking ahead to 2027, Gast said Équité is “still not making the declaration that auto theft is resolved in Canada.”
“It’s still a problem,” he said.
Équité’s focus will be on partnerships with government, law enforcement and auto manufacturers, Gast said, with everybody working together “not to point fingers, but to look for solutions and ways that we can make a preventative piece a reality.”
