“Project Yellowbird” up early to catch crooks

(Update)

Toronto police are still cataloguing stolen items — after a widespread series of raids across the GTA Thursday morning.  The investigation into a sophisticated car theft ring sent police to Oakville and Niagara.

In the cover of night, police ambushed an Oakville townhouse, waking up neighbours and taking a woman away in handcuffs.

Aliaa Mohamed is a neighbour:  “They knock, knock, knock.  Nobody opened the door, so they broke the door and entered and somebody was arrested or something like that.”

The raid was part of a month’s long investigation, dubbed “Project Yellowbird” after a yellow Porsche Carrera, like this one, was stolen from a wealthy Toronto neighbourhood.

Scott Gilbert is with Toronto Police:  “Those break and enters when they’re looking for those vehicles, they were primarily targeting the keys for the vehicle. Anything else they found in the residence was incidental to what they really wanted.”

Eight people were arrested and police are searching for a 9th. They allege members of a crime ring broke into dozens of houses while residents were on vacation, then took the keys to high end vehicles along with other valuables.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair:  “This criminal enterprise has been victimizing people in the city of Toronto for some period of time and they have become bolder and through their advanced criminal enterprise, have become quite successful in victimizing more people.”

This morning, police searched a total of 9 addresses, including a business and storage lockers. So far the investigation has recovered 23 luxury cars with a combined value of well over 2 million dollars.

They believe, once totalled, the goods may be worth over 10 million.

Police believe that these arrests will lead them to more stolen vehicles. Tomorrow, we’re expecting an update with the names of the accused and the charges they’re facing.