Stolen car rings on police radar

This is how your car got stolen. On Tuesday, you drove to a shopping mall to buy a new electric blanket because it was cold. Really cold.

A man drinking coffee at a local cafe watched you park your Subaru. He wrote down the registration, just as he had written down five other car registration numbers that day.

He finished his coffee, got up and went to the PostShop. There, he used fake identification to search the car's registration number. He got your home address.

Later, at about 2am, he spent 20 seconds breaking into and stealing your car. "Fingers", as Waikato police calls one car thief, really can do it that quickly.

Gone. In less than 60 seconds.

Stealing cars is one of the lowest-risk crimes you can commit. The police solve just one in five stolen-car crimes, even though the problem affects so many people.

But a special police operation known as Operation Lexus aims to change that. While investigating a methamphetamine bust in Hawke's Bay, the Herald on Sunday discovered a special police taskforce targeting a major stolen car ring.

Operation Lexus, which began in March, involves six different policing areas - greater Auckland, Hamilton, Bay of Plenty and Hawke's Bay.

Detectives believe there is a large, highly-organised criminal ring involving 30 ringleaders and an army of "soldiers" targeting particular models of cars around the North Island.

They say the cars are stolen to order, their origins then disguised and a lot of money made in the sale.

Ten days ago, detectives switched from gathering intelligence on the ring to action. In Hawke's Bay and Waikato, police moved on connections between stolen cars and methamphetamine. A speed lab was found in Taradale, and in Hamilton three houses were raided and 12 people were arrested.

The ring, they believe, operates like this. A car thief and accomplices drive the cars through the night, before they are reported stolen, to a "chop shop" in another city where they will be dismantled.

They receive methamphetamine in exchange for the car - up to 5g for each vehicle. The value to the thief is the street value - each gram is worth around $800. The cost to the chop shop is less than half that because it manufactures the drug.

The chop shop is a highly organised mechanical workshop staffed with dedicated "choppers". They can take as little as two hours to pull each car apart.

The first part of the car to go is the firewall, between the engine and the cabin of the car. It carries the most obvious, easiest-to-find vehicle identification number. Once the rest of the car is broken into composite parts, it is almost impossible to tell where the parts came from.

The parts are then used to "rebirth a vehicle", or are sold off through classified advertisements or on auction websites, including Trade Me. In some cases, the cash earned for the parts is greater than that earned by selling the whole of the car.

Car crime is big business in New Zealand. Each year between 22,000 (police estimate) and 35,000 (insurance companies' estimate) cars are stolen across New Zealand. Of these, between 35 per cent and 45 per cent are never recovered. If the cars are worth an average $7000 each, it makes the stolen car industry potentially worth more than $100 million to criminals.

Former mechanic Frank de Jong, who runs a car recovery and reward business (www.spotters.co.nz) says stealing cars is "easy money".

"These guys are operating like a business - they're just doing it outside the law."

Police estimate they fail to recover between 35 per cent and 45 per cent of stolen cars. That means stolen cars could form a $110,250,000 business each year.

In Waikato, Detective Sergeant Greg Nichols estimates "the low 40s" as the percentage of cars which are never recovered.

"Over three months we identified 170 cars that had disappeared off the face of the earth.

"Chop shops can go from backyard guy to stripping them, repainting them, retagging them and putting them back on the market. It's beyond the joy riders. These guys, they know their business."

The amount of money, and links with other crime, means old gang rivalries and loyalties come second to the business, he says.

There have been Mongrel Mob connections in the inquiry and other gangs in close proximity.

Police have told the Herald on Sunday they believe there is one chop shop in Hawke's Bay, with others in Waikato and Auckland. They believe the ring has a core of 30 people.

"There's a core group who have soldiers around the North Island. They steal cars to order," says Detective Sergeant Mike Foster of Napier CIB, where police recently caught two men stealing six Subarus in one night.

"The associations are wide. They are swapping cars for methamphetamine," he says.

He believes it is impossible to estimate how successful criminals have been at filtering stolen cars back into society.

"The amount of stolen vehicles on the road with changed identities would be huge. It's very hard to detect and people would have no idea."

Detective Inspector Pete Devoy, crime manager at Hamilton, says police still need more information on the ring. "What happens to these vehicles? Do they disappear into parts? Are they rebirthing?" he says.

The cars may be easy money but the ring is a sophisticated business. Once the cars have been pulled apart, rebuilt with other parts and repainted, VIN plates are taken from cars at wreckers' yards.

At NZ Post, forms are filled out and filed using the wrecker's VIN number claiming the old plates were lost and asking for new plates to be issued. Importantly, the new VIN number shows the car is legal and not stolen.

The car is then advertised for sale, along with thousands of other cars. It is sold on to an unsuspecting buyer.

You could be the person who buys it, replacing your stolen car.

Police welcome information. Call 0800 BUSTHEM (0800 287 843).