A 42-year-old Pickering man and a former Brampton Service Ontario employee have been sentenced for their roles in a sophisticated car-theft ring that defrauded Ontario taxpayers and fueled a provincial “auto theft epidemic.” Eric Johnson of Pickering, the former owner of Prexco Autohub in Vaughan, was sentenced to 15 months in jail today, April 20, 2026. His co-conspirator, 33-year-old Tonisha Baird, received a two-year conditional sentence, including eight months of house arrest and an eight-month curfew. The case is a major outcome of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Project Myra car theft conspiracy, a multi-jurisdictional investigation that ultimately recovered 214 stolen vehicles valued at over $12 million.
The court heard that Johnson acted as a “mastermind” in the scheme, specializing in “re-VINing”—the illegal process of altering a vehicle identification number to give a stolen car a new, legitimate-looking identity. Once Johnson had modified the high-end vehicles, including Range Rovers, Porsches, and BMWs, Baird used her position at a Brampton Service Ontario to manipulate government paperwork. This allowed the stolen cars to be registered and sold to unsuspecting buyers, or in some cases, used by the defendants themselves. At the time of her arrest, Baird was found driving a stolen Audi SUV that had been registered with fraudulent documentation she helped process.
The Project Myra car theft conspiracy investigation revealed the brazen nature of the operation. In one documented instance, a red Range Rover was registered as “white” with a sale price of just $100—a discrepancy that Justice Ranjan Agarwal noted should have been obvious to any experienced government worker. Johnson’s operation was so extensive that he attempted to recruit new “insiders” at Service Ontario even after Baird had left her position. The judge emphasized that such crimes contribute to a climate of “stress, anxiety, and fear” for Ontario residents, who worry that their vehicles may be the next targets for home invasions or driveway thefts.
For Johnson, this sentencing follows a long legal battle. Initially facing 12 counts ranging from trafficking to fraud, he ultimately pleaded guilty to four offenses involving three specific luxury vehicles. The court noted that auto theft rings have become increasingly mobile, with Project Myra tracking leads from the Greater Toronto Area all the way to Sudbury and Saskatchewan. The recovered vehicles in this specific branch of the investigation accounted for a significant portion of the $12 million in assets seized by the OPP Organized Crime Enforcement Bureau between 2020 and 2022.
As the Project Myra car theft conspiracy concludes its judicial phase, provincial officials are using the case to highlight new legislation aimed at hardening Service Ontario’s defenses against internal corruption. Minister of Transportation Prabmeet Sarkaria stated that the province has “no appetite for mercy” regarding those who exploit their positions of trust to facilitate vehicle theft. For the residents of Pickering and the broader Durham Region, the sentencing of Johnson serves as a stark reminder of the ongoing battle against organized auto crime and the sophisticated methods thieves use to hide stolen property in plain sight.
