Visitor has second truck stolen in Toronto area this summer

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Two vehicles gone is 60 seconds and in less than 60 days.

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Michael Mayhew loved his Toyota Tundra truck so much that he brought two this summer. The only problem is the thieves who stole them both, as well as their potential off-shore customers, love them even more.

And they didn’t have to pay $110,000 each for them, as Mayhew did. They just steal them.

Mayhew’s first one, a 2023 model, was stolen from long-term parking at Pearson airport on July 11.  The second one, a 2024 model, was grabbed late Saturday or early Sunday morning outside the Springhill Suites hotel in Vaughan, where he was staying after attending a family wedding. 

“I only had the second one for a little more than a week,” said the 51-year-old businessman from northern Ontario.

Not having much success doing business in the GTA this summer, Mayhew has essentially been unwillingly subsidizing the criminal underground car industry by legally buying expensive cars that they just take for free and sell for a profit. 

And he’s taken all the precautions to avoid it. 

“The first time we had a tracker, but found they put it in a flower pot in Toronto,” he said. 

For the second truck, he put a lock on the steering wheel.

“The thieves broke the window and managed to get the boot off and drove it away,” he said. “Then we find out that the security app on the truck was not working.” 

He’s called Toyota to find out why, but in the meantime the bad guys have his truck. Or make that trucks.

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With the second one, was it just bad luck that the tracking system app in his truck just happened to be down at that time, was it a hack or was that information out there for the criminal world to seize on? 

“It all seems so planned, organized and orchestrated,” he said. 

Mayhew is hoping for more than just an acknowledgement his truck was stolen, but to work with a detective to find out just how deep this whole thing goes and to help police catch the culprits.

“I talked to a very nice police officer at York Regional Police on the phone who said they were dealing with five stolen Toyotas in the same night,” said Mayhew. 

Const. Lisa Moskaluk confirmed York police are “investigating a theft of a vehicle that occurred on Saturday night in Vaughan.” 

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That said, people who have their cars stolen all say they would like more urgency from law enforcement on these crimes. Other than getting a police report number and some sympathy from the officer, no one has met Mayhew in person.  

“It was the same thing with Peel police in Mississauga,” he said. “The police didn’t come out to the scene there or in Vaughan. It’s just all filed on a computer or over the phone.” 

The bad guys know this and have a heck of an advantage. It’s become routine and accepted. It means there is a sale on right now for Toyota Tundras, but you may have to wait for it to be shipped on a cargo ship. With the second one being taken this weekend, it’s possible that vehicle is still in the GTA and could be found before the criminal world can profit on it. But it would require a robust police investigation to try to locate this vehicle and with many stolen each day, it becomes a manpower and priority issue. 

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York police Chief Jim McSween is set to make an announcement Tuesday about the results of an investigation that has led to some arrests and retrieved some vehicles. Peel police and Toronto Police have also done excellent work on this growing problem. 

But two common themes noticeable in these projects are the accused have alleged international connections and in most cases have been placed on bail. Making car thieves ineligible for easy bail, giving them harsher prison sentences and in appropriate cases deporting them would certainly make things a little more difficult for these criminals. 

While arrests are a positive outcome, none of that helps Mayhew’s current nightmare.

“We picked up the new vehicle on Aug. 15, so we drove the truck for nine days prior to it being stolen once again,” he said. “The vehicle had approximately 617 km on the odometer.

“How can I go and buy another one when it’s obvious it’s going to be stolen?”

It’s an excellent question, but whoever stole his first two could be hoping he purchases another Toyota Tundra so crooks can go for the hat trick. 

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