Russian Sanctions Are Fueling a Canadian Car Theft Epidemic

>Canada’s car theft epidemic began in 2021

So why bring up Russia?

>"The effort has returned around 200 vehicles to Canada, including some from Russia.

Last month, Mr. Cresswell said, six stolen cars arrived from Russia.

“It’s groundbreaking to get cars repatriated from Russia,” he said. “The idea was once that if a car reaches that soil, the car is gone.”

Why would the Russian authorities return stolen cars to Western countries? One explanation is that Russian law prohibits the registration of vehicles listed in Interpol’s database. Returning them is one way to prevent unusable stolen cars from piling up. Western officials say that Moscow is broadly cooperative when it comes to crimes like auto theft."

So why again it's a story about Russia?

>Just as a network of smugglers and dilapidated tankers expanded to evade oil embargoes, criminal groups moved to fill the void when Western automakers left the Russian market and many countries banned auto exports there.

So now anyone who doesn't obey western illegal extraterritorial sanctions is a "smuggler"?