The Ford government is set to introduce stiff penalties for thieves who rip off legitimate vehicle identification numbers and apply them to stolen vehicles, Global News has learned, in an attempt to crack down on a growing auto-theft-related issue.
While multiple levels of government have thrown hundreds of millions towards cracking down on the auto theft crime wave, politicians have also been warned about a second layer of crime targeting a vehicle’s unique 17-character identification number known as a VIN.
The code, which includes information about a vehicle’s make, model, year and manufacturing location and is widely considered to be a fingerprint for cars, has increasingly become a target for thieves looking to legitimize a stolen vehicle.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada says the process of “reVINing” has been “particularly pronounced” in Ontario and has called on the Ford government to implement a suite of reforms.
Internal government documents, obtained by Global News, suggest the Ford government has been closely tracking the issue.
During a 14-month period in 2023 and 2024, ServiceOntario investigated 615 cases of fraudulent vehicle registration, the government documents stated, requiring new tools for police officers to target the growing issue.
The Ford government now plans to introduce legislation to create a new Highway Traffic Act offence for knowingly providing the Ministry of Transportation with a false vehicle identification number, with possible fines and jail time for convicted fraudsters.
“We’re working on legislation to bring in some of the toughest penalties on the impacts of re-VINing,” Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said during a Sunday news conference.
While the minister didn’t offer details, the internal documents show the penalties under consideration:
- Fines between $50,000 and $75,000 for the first offence, and $75,000 to $100,000 for the second offence.
- Up to six months of jail time
- Up to a one-year driver’s license suspension
According to government slides, the province initially considered a much lower fine of between $5,000 and $25,000 before dramatically raising them in the final legislation.
While the beefed-up laws are designed to serve as a deterrent, it is unclear whether the Ford government is looking to implement preventative measures that have seen positive impacts in other provinces.
In 2021, when Caroline Mulroney was still Transportation Minister, the province began consulting on how to improve Ontario’s assigned VIN program.
While the Ministry of Transportation requires a sworn affidavit to assign an identification number, the province wanted feedback on whether it should introduce an investigative system that would charge applicants a fee.
A summary of the proposal pointed to Alberta and Saskatchewan which use third-party investigators to complete a detailed inspection of the vehicle and its history before assigning a VIN, at a cost of between $100-$500 to the applicant.
“After introducing third-party investigations into their assigned VIN programs, Alberta and Saskatchewan reported significant improvements to the integrity of their assigned VIN programs, including recovery of stolen vehicles,” the proposal said.
In the interim, sources told Global News the government has been quietly making half a dozen “mechanical changes” at ServiceOntario to target VIN-related fraud in order to close loopholes.
The exact details of the changes, however, are being closely guarded for “operational security reasons” to ensure fraud detection measures aren’t publicly advertised.
NDP MPP Jennifer French has also called for an overhaul of the province’s VIN database after a number of police crackdowns related to VIN-related fraud.
In one case, Toronto police charged a ServiceOntario employee who allegedly issued “legitimate-looking vehicle registrations” in order to “re-vin stolen vehicles, effectively disguising them as legitimate.”
“We should expect that any VIN in the registry is legitimate,” French told Global News. “We shouldn’t question the legitimacy of the VIN database”
French called for clarity on how the fraud detection process within ServiceOntario would flag a potential case of re-VINing and strengthen the internal audit system.
“It’s at best a work in process or at worse a mess,” French said of the ServiceOntario audit system. “We need to tidy that up and make sure the VIN database has integrity.”
Global News asked the Ford government why it took so long to implement the changes, and what came of the 2021 consultation, but did not receive a response.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada has called on the Ford government for additional preventative measures such as restricting public access to detailed vehicle information reports that could include the unique VIN code and has asked the federal government to create a national VIN database.
The province is expected to table its legislation on Nov. 4.