CBC investigation finds numerous Montreal exporters sent stolen vehicles overseas

In June 2024, an Ontario adult male who was visiting Montreal parked his gondola, a Honda allot, on the street in a exchange neighbourhood. The next daylight, it was gone.

The man, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals from a criminal organization, filed a police report and received an insurance payment, but he never heard about the car again. 

Three weeks later, police officers staking out a warehouse in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough saw his car being loaded into a shipping container. 

The officers watched from afar as a group of men placed the Accord deep inside the container followed by two older, used cars and then stacks of mattresses.

The warehouse, located at 407 Lebeau Blvd., was home to Albert Logistique, a business registered in Quebec whose legal activities included mattress exports to Africa.

In the documents, police identified the man behind Albert Logistique — Albert Tshiyoyo — as an exporter tied to the network. 

Sources who work in the shipping business also told us the city’s export industry is saturated with organized criminals who ship stolen cars. 

Exporters like these have played a key role in a recent surge in auto theft across eastern Canada, according to police intelligence reports. They create a market for stolen cars and, in some cases, are actively involved in car theft.

Export businesses fill Montreal’s industrial parks.

Because of its port, the city is a hub for products leaving for overseas markets: grain, petroleum derivatives, wood and containers.

Much of the container shipping is managed by freight forwarders, who handle logistics for exporters seeking to send products abroad.

These exporters are so pervasive in Montreal that many freight forwarders keep extensive lists of companies with whom they will do no business.

Many of them are registered companies; sometimes they present themselves as legitimate import/export brokers, other times they say they are in the used car business, or involved in clothing shipments.

Many of the companies are still operating and are involved in shipping products overseas.

The owner of a different company that has also had shipments seized because they contained stolen cars denied any involvement in vehicle theft and refused to answer any further questions.

As of March 2026, Tshiyoyo, the exporter identified by police as having ties to stolen vehicles, has not been charged with a crime, despite police raiding his business’s warehouse in 2024 and finding stolen cars there slated for export alongside piles of mattresses.

We couldn’t find out much more about Tshiyoyo. He is identified in the police documents as “Albert,” a Congolese man who operated the mattress warehouse at 407 Lebeau Blvd. In 2024, employing workers to pack stolen vehicles into containers.

Using two companies, Transit Express Global Services and Albert Logistique, documents show he sent cars overseas. Police investigators said they counted 38 confirmed stolen vehicles that made their way through the warehouse, where Tshiyoyo’s companies were based.

She said the company did ship cars, but denied knowledge of stolen car shipments, adding the company verifies that its vehicles are legal to export.

Tshiyoyo has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Lucas Bastien, a spokesperson for Quebec’s public prosecution service, the DPCP, said the service had “no public information” to share about Tshiyoyo or about Project Submersible, the name for the police investigation that targeted Tshiyoyo’s businesses and warehouse in 2024.

The investigation into the car theft and export network allegedly linked to Tshiyoyo is still ongoing, according to Gregory Gomez Del Prado, a spokesperson for the Sûreté du Québec (SQ), Quebec’s provincial police force.

Project Submersible is one of several investigations that the SQ and its partners are currently conducting to combat car theft, Gomez Del Prado said. 

While he said he could not comment on an active investigation, Del Prado said delays are common in complex cases that target potential criminal networks. Police perform raids earlier in an investigation to ensure they have enough evidence before conducting arrests and laying charges. Doing so reduces the risk of a case being dismissed due to judicial delays. 

The Ontario man whose car was stolen in 2024 said he was shocked to learn that the same person who police have linked to his stolen car still appears to be operating a mattress company and exporting cars.

“This happened to me, but as we speak, it's probably happening to somebody else too,” he said.

Journalist

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