GTA In Real Life? Look No Further Than Toronto

Those of you who have been reading up on Canadian news might be forgiven if you asked yourself whether this particular story is actually just the plot of an unreleased GTA game. Sharing the game franchise's acronym isn't the only connection between the Greater Toronto Area and Rockstar's hit series it seems.

We've previously reported on a car trafficking ring that felt like it was straight out of the Import/Export DLC being busted in the region. However, the criminal element in the GTA isn't quite done with recreating GTA just yet — first it was cars, now it's weapons and drugs.

The entire story reads like what would be an awesome plot for GTA 6. In the culmination of an 18-month undercover operation named Operation Silkstone (at least we now know those goofy Hollywood operation names aren't complete BS), police have uncovered a major smuggling op moving guns and drugs from the Montreal area through the GTA to the USA.

18 people have been arrested and charged in the case, including a member of the Hell's Angels, which served as inspiration for GTA's The Lost biker gang, and an employee of the Ontario government. This "cast" already looks like they dropped directly out of a game.

The charges include identity theft, as the group had a pretty solid forgery business going, and with the help of the Service Ontario employee, managed to create fake government IDs and passports. The employee was named as Iwona Kirpsza, 47, by deputy inspector Mike Pothier of the Ontario Provincial Police.

We engaged Service Ontario... and they helped us facilitate her arrest. I don’t know what her role was, but she is terminated and her access has been removed by Service Ontario.

A number of locations were searched in the operation, leading to the confiscation of drugs worth over $3 million on the street. This included almost 12,000 fentanyl pills, 8 Kg of cocaine, 180 pounds of marijuana and THC vaporizers. Seems like these guys were keeping their warehouses well stocked.

What's more, they were pretty well stocked in terms of weapons too. A large number of unregistered guns were discovered, including a Russian-made rifle, and illegal Ruger and a custom hunting rifle with a booby-trapped trigger. The group's garage was decked out too, with 4 vehicles including a trailer and a freaking snowmobile.

Between this and the car smuggling ring, we're quite certain that the area would be a great setting for a GTA game regardless of what we wrote in our analysis for City of the Week. Rockstar, we hope you're taking notes!