Image via Paramount/Prestige Towing/Facebook
The slaying of a towing company owner outside a plaza in Toronto has placed more focus on the ties between organized crime and criminal towing operations in the metro area. While we’re not even a little surprised by the details, we’re grateful the media coverage is helping to open some eyes.
Tow trucks in San Francisco are trying to scoop up occupied cars on the road.
Sadly, organized crime and towing, both companies which are legitimate in most of its operations and completely illegitimate operations, have a long history. The ability to just scoop up a car, whether to steal it, hide evidence from a crime, or whatever else one might want is real power.
That kind of power can spur conflict and the Greater Toronto Area has seen its fair share of that. Towing moguls have been ordering hits, sabotaging the competition, and ratcheting up the violence for years.
But the latest salvo in the towing wars, the killing of Alexander Vinogradsky, owner of Paramount Towing, has shone a light on the issue we haven’t seen in some time. Gunned down on March 28, he allegedly was in deep with rivalries which had police looking at him as possibly ordering hits on rivals.
The CBC goes into great detail on these hits in its report and why authorities believe Vinogradsky ordered them. But what it comes down to is powerful men somehow connected to the slain victims put a price on the towing company owner’s head and it looks like someone cashed in.
Vinogradsky had been on the wrong side of the law for some time. But it appears he feared even more reprisal attacks from rivals. The Star says during a 2020 court case he petitioned to have his and his parents’ addresses redacted from filings, explaining that he believed their lives would be in danger if that information were known by certain parties.
Despite authorities vowing to crack down on the tow truck wars in the GTA back in 2020, it seems the conflict is as bad as ever.
Image via Paramount/Prestige Towing/Facebook
