Carjackings are up more than 100 per cent in Toronto this year in a string of cases often involving armed youth. Behind the crime wave: organized crime, the opioid epidemic and the promise of “life-changing” money.
$10,000.
That’s how much Toronto police believe a young teen can get for stealing a luxury car at gunpoint and handing it over to adult criminals who then strip the vehicles of any identifiers and, often, ship them overseas.
That astronomical sum — for teens, at least — may help explain why this city is seeing a “staggering” rise in carjackings and other armed robberies involving youth, the head of the force’s hold-up squad said in a rare year-end interview with the Star.
