Violent 'tow truck wars' erupt in Toronto
- A string of violent incidents, including shootings and arsons, has been linked to Toronto's towing industry. - Incidents include shootings, vehicles torched, and suspects tied to rival towing operators. - Police and industry call it a 'well-known secret', raising concerns about organized-crime links ( theguardian.com ).
Toronto’s tow truck business has become a shooting-and-arson battleground, with police tying dozens of attacks to fights over who gets crash calls first. (tps.ca) Toronto police said 63 firearm discharges and shootings in 2024 were linked to tow-truck disputes, nearly 13% of all such incidents in the city. On January 13, 2025, the service launched “Project Dodger” after saying towing-related cases had risen to 70% of Toronto shootings early that year. (tps.ca) The violence did not stop with that task force. On June 18, 2025, Toronto police said a wiretap investigation called Project Yankee led to 20 arrests, 111 charges and 52 conspiracy-to-commit-murder counts against people they said were organizing attacks to control the towing industry. (globalnews.ca) CBC reported the accused in Project Yankee were allegedly part of a group police called “the Union,” and that the defendants ranged in age from 17 to 53. Police said the case involved arsons, shootings and planned killings across Toronto, Durham and York Region. (cbc.ca) The business is lucrative because the first tow truck at a crash scene can secure towing, storage and repair revenue. Ontario and Toronto have tried to regulate that scramble through provincial licensing rules and restricted highway tow zones in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. (ontario.ca 1) (ontario.ca 2) Those rules did not end the fight for territory. Peel police said on April 21, 2026 that four tow trucks were torched at three Brampton locations overnight in what investigators were treating as a series of arsons, while Toronto police the same day publicly addressed multiple tow-truck fires. (toronto.citynews.ca) (cp24.com) Another front in the crackdown reached police themselves. York Regional Police announced on February 5, 2026 that seven Toronto police officers and one retired officer faced charges in Project South, an organized-crime and corruption case tied to violent incidents involving tow operators across the Greater Toronto Area. (cbc.ca) (toronto.citynews.ca) CBC said sources alleged officers leaked addresses to hitmen and shared police information with people connected to the tow-truck violence probe. York investigators said the case began after they intercepted a murder conspiracy in June 2025. (cbc.ca) (blueline.ca) Police have also traced repeated shootings to homes linked to towing figures. York police investigated a Vaughan house on Allison Ann Way after it was hit for a third time in two months in October 2025, and CityNews reported the same home was targeted again on February 2, 2026, making it a fourth shooting in five months. (cbc.ca) (toronto.citynews.ca) Toronto police say most tow operators follow the rules, and their public line is that a “small group of bad actors” is driving the bloodshed. The next test is whether the big 2025 and 2026 cases can hold up in court strongly enough to slow a war that has kept spilling from impound lots onto city streets. (tps.ca) (globalnews.ca)
