Ontario Turf Wars: Why Police Are Cracking Down on Violence in Towing Industry

A tow truck drives along the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto on March 2, 2021. The Canadian Press/Frank Gunn

Toronto-area police have been working to dismantle a push by organized crime groups to take control of the local tow truck industry, leading to multiple arrests and hundreds of charges laid this month.

The Toronto Police Service this week announced the arrests of 20 suspects linked to a group known as “The Union,” an alleged crime syndicate suspected of engaging in criminal activities and violence to gain control over the towing industry.

The announcement comes two days after a separate investigation by the Peel Regional Police resulted in the arrests of 18 people linked to a suspected tow truck organized crime group engaged in violent extortions and insurance fraud schemes.

The organized crime takeover of the tow truck industry has been a source of concern for several years, marked by conflicts arising from turf wars and rivalries. The violence ramped up last year and has continued into 2025, Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said during a recent press conference.

There were 63 shooting and firearm discharge incidents in Toronto last year connected to tow truck-related conflicts, representing nearly 13 percent of the total shootings and firearm discharges in the city.

Up to this point in 2025, 15 percent of all shooting incidents in Toronto have been attributed to the industry.

Ongoing Issue

Fraudulent practices in the tow truck industry that have been linked to organized crime have been under scrutiny for several years.

The Ontario government implemented legislation in 2021 to take responsibility for the towing industry out of the hands of municipalities.

The Towing and Storage Safety and Enforcement Act was established following multiple occurrences of insurance fraud, inflated invoices, stunt driving, and threatening or intimidating behaviour exhibited by “chaser” tow operators toward both customers and legitimate operators.

The Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) describes “chasers” as unscrupulous towing operators who employ a range of different techniques to search for breakdowns and accidents, and then resort to pressure and intimidation to coerce stranded motorists into accepting their services, often at inflated costs.

The regulatory change was also prompted by police investigations that suggested the presence of organized crime within parts of the industry.

In 2024, the province also put in place legislation requiring tow truck drivers to obtain a provincial certificate to operate. Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria said at the time it was a bid to prevent “bad actors” from preying on vulnerable drivers.

The legislation, which took effect last July, obligates tow truck operators to provide customers with details regarding their maximum fees as well as transport a customer’s vehicle to the requested destination via the most direct route.

CAA North & East Ontario president Jeff Walker said the move was necessary, noting that his organization regularly received complaints from members about “chasers” misrepresenting themselves as CAA, or aggressively attempting to tow a stranded vehicle through intimidation.

While the legislation helped to govern the industry in general, it did little to stop the segment of the industry linked to organized crime, and violence escalated with more than half a dozen shootings over the 2024 Canada Day long weekend in Toronto’s east-end. One or more shooters in a stolen Honda CRV targeted several businesses, homes, and vehicles during a 48-hour period. No one was hurt, but police said such shootings were used to instil fear.

Project Yankee

Toronto investigators launched a wiretap operation known as Project Yankee a few months later to collect evidence against The Union, the criminal organization that police say is responsible for multiple acts of violence, intimidation, and extortion.

The violence, which included several arsons, was mainly focused on the east side of Toronto and into the Durham and York regions, police said.

“As a result of the wiretap investigation, numerous members of ‘The Union’ are now facing charges related to directing and participating in the activities of a criminal organization, along with multiple conspiracies to commit first-degree murder,” Toronto Police Chief Superintendent Joe Matthews said during a June 18 press conference. “Several acts of violence on a mass scale were deterred and prevented as a result.”

The investigation, which began last October, ended on June 11 with the execution of 14 search warrants. Twenty people were arrested over the course of the investigation and 10 of them are facing 52 counts of conspiracy to commit murder.

Matthews noted that several of the suspects have no prior criminal history, saying they belonged to the “upper echelon” of the criminal organization seeking to dominate the towing industry.

Police laid 111 charges in total, more than half of which were related to extortion, arson, assault, fraud, and firearm offences. All 20 suspects taken into custody were male and ranged in age from 17 to 53.

Toronto police also made public earlier this year video footage linked to a separate series of arrests related to tow truck-linked shootings. Matthews said a court-imposed publication ban prevented police from answering questions about any connections between the cases.

Superintendent Paul MacIntyre announced at a June 4 press conference that 11 people were facing more than 200 charges in connection with a series of violent incidents across the region this year, some of which were linked to the towing industry.

While some of the charges were connected to a mass shooting at the Piper Arms pub in Scarborough, the remainder were “part of the tow truck turf wars that were going on,” MacIntyre said.

Eight men between the ages of 19 and 22, a 15-year-old, and two 17-year-olds are facing a total of 203 charges, including 24 counts of attempted murder, as a result.

Three were charged in connection with the pub shooting but face charges for other incidents in the Toronto area as well. The 11 suspects have been linked to a March 1 shooting at a commercial plaza that resulted in non-life-threatening injuries and multiple shootings on March 4 when one victim was shot while washing his vehicle, one was shot at a tow yard, and another was shot in the same area. All three victims survived the shootings, police said.

MacIntyre said the accused were not gang members and instead described them as  “a collective of a bunch of guys that got together and they’re doing these shootings … probably for hire.”

Project Outsource

Peel Regional Police launched a similar investigation last year into ongoing tow truck industry-related violence. Dubbed Project Outsource, the investigation began in July 2024 after a “sharp” increase in violent extortions targeting South Asian business owners and a growing number of staged collisions that police say were used to defraud insurance companies of more than $1 million.

Investigators discovered that several suspects associated with towing companies in the GTA were also using threats, assaults, and firearms in a bid to gain control of local towing operations, task force leader Det. Brian Lorette said during a June 16 press conference. Police allege the suspects are associated with towing companies operating under the names Certified Roadside and Humble Roadside.

Officers arrested 18 people and laid nearly 100 charges after 67 search warrants were executed on June 10 across the regions of Peel and York as well as in Caledon and Toronto. Police confiscated approximately $4.2 million in assets including 18 tow trucks which were “some of the tools” used to carry out their offences, Lorette said.

Seventeen men from Brampton ranging in age from 38 to 21 have been charged, as well as a 37-year-old woman from King City. Nearly half of the 18 charged were on a form of judicial release at the time of arrest.

Lorette said the investigation is ongoing and further arrests and charges are expected in the future, but noted that the arrests made thus far should de-escalate the ongoing violence in the industry.

“We believe the guns and tow trucks seized during this investigation as well as the arrests made will have a significant impact on our region as well as across the GTA and throughout Canada,” he said.

Toronto Police Chief Superintendent Matthews made similar comments about Project Yankee, describing it as a major blow to the criminal towing syndicate.

“We’re removing the people that are coordinating these acts of violence, and we’re taking them off the streets,” he said. “We are extremely confident that these arrests will have an impact on the violence in our city.”