The importance of marking car and heavy transport batteries for identification was borne out recently when two young men tried to sell batteries to a Napier scrap-metal dealership for cash.
The batteries they turned up with raised the suspicions of staff at the yard as there appeared to be identification marks on them.
Onekawa and Pandora Community Constable Mike Burne said the fact the firm that had lost the batteries during a break-in at its yard had reported the loss immediately, combined with the call from the scrap dealers saying they had concerns about what they were being offered led to the two arrests.
One man was charged with burglary and the second for receiving stolen property.
"The batteries had been marked and were easily identifiable," Mr Burne said.
He had been driving the "mark them" programme for a couple of years and said the latest incident proved its worth, with two arrests made and the company getting batteries back.
Mr Burne said commercial operators with fleets of vehicles in yards that posed a temptation for fuel and battery thieves needed to use a soldering iron or stamp to mark their name and contact number.
"Paint or stickering can be too easily removed."
He said merchants would seek some form of authenticity of ownership if offered marked batteries, and would turn away anyone offering batteries that appeared to have had markings cleared away.