custom car parts

Stolen cars end up in an $80 million market

Upmarket vehicles stolen to order are often stripped down for parts or repainted in elaborate back-street "chopshops".

Police car theft expert Mark Leys, of Papatoetoe, said he hadn't heard of a rental car company being hit in the way Hamilton's Avis was hit this week.

"We've previously had haulage yard break-ins and for a while there we had problems at the wharf at the clearing yard for Japanese imports," he said.

"We don't get too many late-model Commodores taken but a common thing for thieves to do is to strip them down to a shell, then when the insurance company writes them off, buy the shell, refit it and then have a clean, new car."

Of the 7227 cars stolen and not recovered last year, 6179 are thought to have been stolen by professionals who cut them down and changed identification numbers.