{"id":718927,"date":"2026-06-06T11:57:27","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T11:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/718927\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T11:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T11:57:27","slug":"durham-police-lay-over-1k-charges-arrest-46-in-criminal-tourism-bust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/718927\/","title":{"rendered":"Durham Police lay over 1k charges, arrest 46 in \u2018criminal tourism\u2019 bust"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Durham regional police say 46 people have been arrested following a years-long investigation into international organized crime groups who were travelling to Canada for the purpose of executing high-profit crimes.<\/p>\n

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The investigation, dubbed Project Jetsetter, has linked more than 200 incidents across the Greater Toronto Area since 2019, according to a news release from Durham regional police.<\/p>\n

Police say they have since laid more than 1,440 charges and confirmed more than $2.6 million in losses to victims in Durham Region alone.<\/p>\n

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Investigations identified a wide range of organized criminal activity, including large-scale retail theft operations, vehicle purchasing scams, vehicle financing fraud, staged collisions for insurance fraud, jewelry distraction thefts, and the theft and exportation of vehicles and other goods.<\/p>\n

These offences are structured, repeatable and designed to maximize financial gain.<\/p>\n

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Police allege the suspects used co-ordinated distraction techniques, such as offering assistance, gifts or conversation, before stealing jewelry and other valuables. Police say these incidents have risen dramatically, especially with seniors.<\/p>\n

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Project Jetsetter involved more than nine investigations and 5,000 hours of work, according to Durham police.<\/p>\n

\u201cCriminal tourism is a recent, borderless form of organized crime that impacts the daily lives of Canadians,\u201d Mario Panizzon, director general of RCMP National Intelligence, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

There are still\u00a0164 suspects wanted.<\/p>\n

Chief Peter Moreira added that by \u201crecognizing the warning signs and reporting suspicious behaviour, residents can help reduce opportunities for offenders and support ongoing investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Project Jetsetter remains active as investigators work to identify and apprehend the other suspects.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size Durham regional police say 46 people have been arrested following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,260111,44,80129],"class_list":["post-718927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-criminal-tourism","tag-news","tag-toronto-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}