The fast and furious crime wave that costs us $100 million a year

Many vehicles are recovered but are often badly damaged. Photo / Richard Robinson

When it comes to stealing cars, the faster the better. Preferably four-wheel drive and turbocharged. "I've never, ever been caught in a high-speed chase with police and I've been doing it for a long time.

"For a getaway car, you want something brand new and European, something that won't cut out at 180km/h on the motorway. I'm talking Aston Martin, 300km/h over the Auckland Harbour Bridge."

It sounds bombastic but he's speaking matter-of-factly. There are two classes of thief: petty and professional. Our thief is the latter. He is speaking anonymously to give a rare and exclusive insight into the world of car crime that affects so many New Zealanders.

Car crime is a business. Big business. Each year, between 20,000 (police figures) and 40,000 (insurance estimates) are stolen across the country. Of these, police intelligence suggests roughly 60 per cent are recovered, which means between 8000 and 16,000 stolen cars are never found. If the cars are worth an average of $7500, the unrecovered cars are potentially worth up to $120 million.

Our man, the Professional, is considered to be one of a handful of thieves who can claim to be the best in the business. Underworld sources said he was the best car thief to speak to; even his defence lawyer Chris Comeskey said he was the "most qualified".

Now in his 30s, the Professional says vehicle theft is a diverse crime. "Stolen cars can be used in so many ways: re-sell, for parts, for getaway cars to do other jobs."

While he targets high-performance vehicles in the $200,000 plus market - "Audi, BMW, Mercedes" - to ship overseas or commit other crimes, the Professional says most cars these days will be stolen to order to be chopped up and sold for parts.

"I could steal your car in a few minutes. You then drive it straight away to a chop shop or a fence. Most 'car knockers' have a reliable fence they trust. I strip the cars completely myself, takes me about a day. But that's low-end stuff."

Just $2000 is the car thief's reward for a "mid-range boyracer" such as a late-model Mitsubishi Evo. A powerful R34 Skyline, with tens of thousands of dollars spent on it, perhaps $7000.

The risk is still worth it for thieves, as just one in five car crimes is solved by police. And as one critic noted, the 40 per cent of stolen cars that are never found do not "simply vanish into thin air". Where there is money, there are also the tentacles of organised crime and gangs.

A police taskforce found strong links between gangs, stolen cars and methamphetamine in a car-theft investigation across Auckland and the wider North Island in 2006.

Gang members targeted carparks at supermarkets or shopping centres to identify cars and stole them to order.

The thieves would drive in the dark from Auckland to as far away as the Hawkes Bay to dismantle the cars in a "chop shop" where they could be pulled apart in as little as two hours.

The parts were used to "rebirth" other vehicles, or sold through classified ads or auction sites, such as Trade Me. More often than not, individual parts were sold for more money than the car itself. Some chop shops were also running methamphetamine clan labs and distributing drugs in other cities, en route to Auckland where they would steal cars before the return trip south. Often, cars would be paid for in P - as little as $200 worth for each car.

Operation Lexus head Detective Sergeant Greg Nicholls said police targeted the organised crime groups as a whole, rather than focusing on the individuals stealing cars themselves.

He described them as "criminal specialists", professional thieves who were highly skilled and could steal a car in less than 20 seconds. "We locked up a guy in Auckland and, shortly after being arrested, he received a text from an associate saying he had stolen a $68,000 Lexus jeep. They were really active and skilled operators"

But, Mr Nicholls said, by focusing on the gangs rather than individuals, the taskforce got "more bang for the buck".

"What was the really interesting thing was the co-operation between the gangs and the trading in commodities, cars, drugs and so on. Police in Hawkes Bay got a clan lab and hydroponic [cannabis] set-up and arrested six gang members. Two of those guys stole six Subarus in one night to fund their meth habits. We [Waikato police] knocked over three clan labs, two hydroponics and had 12 gang members arrested in one day. It just showed the level of organisation and co-operation between the gangs."

The success of Operation Lexus led to greater sharing of information between police districts, which picked up more vehicle theft on a grand scale.

Last year, Operation Beryl found that hundreds of Toyota vans were being stolen, broken down into parts and shipped overseas to be sold on the black market in countries such as Afghanistan.

But despite a few high-profile success stories like these, only one in five stolen vehicle cases are solved. Many car owners report the theft only so they can make an insurance claim.

That's because car theft is not "high on the police agenda" according to Frank de Jong, a qualified automotive engineer who runs an insurance company-funded car recovery and reward business (spotter.co.nz).

Mr de Jong believes the police need a national autotheft squad to specifically target car thieves, rather than the organised crime groups.

"It's not just a stolen Subaru. It's a car that is used by drug dealers to ferry their drugs around, before being dumped. Or the Subaru is stolen by a burglar to carry away your $2000 flat-screen TV, then chopped into parts to pay for his P habit.

"And who is paying for all this? We do, every time your insurance premiums go up. If we targeted car theft, it would make a huge impact on organised crime in New Zealand."

He says New Zealand should follow the lead of Australia, where a national council shares a wealth of information on stolen cars from police, registration authorities and insurance companies.

This collaboration allows the Australian police to focus investigations and crack down on organised crime groups, who often launder the illicit funds back to the Middle East.

While insurance companies and the police here share intelligence on an ad hoc basis, there is no formal structure in place. And no dedicated car-theft squads, after the Auckland unit was disbanded quietly a few years ago.

Insurance Council chief executive Chris Ryan believes police do a good job with car theft, but are not always resourced to tackle organised crime.

"The police definitely need more resources. We have big losses with organised crime. We think the cost to the insurance industry is more than $100 million a year. Which is a heck of a lot of money to our customers."

When asked how the police could crack down on car thieves, Mr Ryan stopped short of advocating dedicated vehicle-theft squads.

"The police have to address it the way they think is best. Too many people think that stealing cars is petty crime. But all data indicates that's where people start their criminal career, the petty stuff, then move on to more serious, even violent crime."

Overseas the trends for fighting car crime are mixed. New technology, such as transponder keys (which respond to a predetermined radio signal from the car's computer) and rolling code locks, makes it harder for thieves to steal new cars and worldwide the number of car thefts is falling.

According to Dr Ken German, president of the British branch of the International Association of Auto Theft Investigators, the advanced security in many modern cars has forced thieves to target cars at least five years old or simply steal car keys in burglaries.

But he wrote that police research into the theft of car keys indicated the recovery rate may be as low as 1 in 20.

The Professional argues that even advanced security systems will not stop a determined thief like him.

"It's all about the internet these days. I've spent thousands of dollars importing tools from overseas, learning how to use them. Mastering my craft you might say. You can buy tools on the internet that you can plug into the car and mimic the transponder. Or you just take the keys."

But he does have a word of apparently genuine advice for car owners who spend hundreds of dollars or more on a new alarm system.

"People might have the money for a nice car and a good alarm. But they don't realise that it's how the alarm is installed, not the alarm itself, that is crucial. To disable any alarm, you need to find the 'brain'. The better the 'brain' is hidden and contained, the longer it will take for someone to steal. Saying that, I'm still going to be able to get it, but it will take me longer.

"It may not be worth my while."