TORONTO — The alarm system roused the Toronto family at 2:30 a.m. Downstairs, the rear French doors had been pried open but the burglar did not seem to have taken anything.
Then they noticed the car keys were missing. Their 2006 Acura MDX had been stolen while they slept. The alarm company came and the police came, but the car was long gone.
Five months later, a freighter arrived off the Gold Coast of West Africa and unloaded its cargo of metal shipping containers at Tema, the busiest port in Ghana and the departure point for the country’s main export, cocoa.
When local customs inspectors peeked inside the shipping containers, they found not clothes or household items but luxury cars with Ontario and Quebec licence plates.
One of them was a 2006 Acura MDX.
The Interpol officer in Ghana called his counterpart in Ottawa. A check of the vehicle identification number confirmed it was the same Acura pilfered from the driveway in Toronto.
Hundreds of cars stolen in Canada are now turning up in Ghana, according to Canadian auto insurance officials and investigators.
The situation is getting so bad that the Canadian insurance industry recently sent a former RCMP officer to the country to train local customs authorities and police.
“It does seem to be the current hot route for vehicles,” said Rick Dubin of the Insurance Bureau of Canada. “That whole area on the western side of Africa is a real destination point for stolen vehicles.”
Source: GhanaWeb
