This car was stolen from a driveway in Canada. We found it in West Africa

The call from Ghana woke Len Green at the Toronto home where his prized vehicle had been stolen a year earlier.

"I'm calling from CBC News," said the journalist on the other end of the phone. "We're doing an investigation into stolen vehicles, and I'm pretty sure I'm sitting in your vehicle … in West Africa."

"Woah," he replied. "I can't believe it … that's crazy."

In the same lot, journalists found dozens of other vehicles, some with Canadian licence plates, often with their provincial registration and insurance documents still in the glove box.

All had been reported stolen from Ontario and Quebec. In 2021, there were just over 27,000 vehicles stolen from Ontario alone, according to a recent report by the Canadian Financing and Leasing Association. That's a car stolen every 17 minutes.

"A large portion of them are leaving the country," said Det.-Sgt. Mark Haywood of Peel Regional Police. "You'll see about 80 per cent of them going out through the ports."

In 2022, police and insurers said there was a never-before-seen billion dollars worth of cars stolen in Canada. It has the country's insurance industry warning of much higher premiums on the most targeted vehicles, and of the potential that some vehicles could be uninsurable.

"There is no doubt that vehicle theft has reached a national crisis in this country," said Terri O'Brien, President & CEO of Équité Association, which investigates insurance fraud on behalf of member insurance companies.

His organization points to surging rates of theft just in 2022:

How the stolen cars end up abroad is a fascinating and evolving crime.

Police sources tell CBC News that large, established organized criminal gangs based in Montreal are behind most of the thefts, though it's become so lucrative, other groups with less technical skill are becoming involved.

This partially explains what the police sources say is an increase in home invasions and violent attacks to obtain a vehicle and its keys.

Small teams sometimes mark cars in mall parking lots during the day by using GPS trackers similar to the ones people can buy and place in their luggage or on key chains to track lost items.

Then, typically at night, they use the trackers to follow the marked vehicles and take them from streets and driveways, quickly cramming multiple vehicles into shipping containers, which are then moved by truck or train to the Port of Montreal and loaded onto ships.