Johor Luxury Car Theft Syndicated Smashed

Via simonthongwh:

“Geng Panjang” members nabbed, nine stolen cars recovered
Posted on 28 October 2011 – 05:26am

JOHOR BAHRU (Oct 27, 2011): Police smashed a luxury car theft syndicate here following the arrest of four men and a woman aged between 23 and 37 yesterday.

The men were held in a raid at a hotel here at 1.30am while the woman was nabbed in Yong Peng at 2.50am.

“Nine cars were recovered, among them were a Honda Stream, BMW 320I, Toyota Wish, Kia Carens and Mitsubishi Colt valued at about RM650,000,” said South Johor Baharu police chief ACP Zainuddin Yaacob.

Speaking to reporters here today, Zainuddin said the luxury cars were left in several public parking lots around the city here with forged number plates to avoid detection.

Five of the stolen cars were from Singapore while the rest were locally registered.

The syndicate, known as Geng Panjang, had been active since 2001 and was believed to have recruited several new members who are still at large.

The stolen vehicles would usually be sold to members of the public at extremely low prices, as cheap as RM7,000 and below.

He requested the cooperation of public car park owners to inform the police should a car be kept for a long period of time in their parking lot.

In Alor Setar, police foiled two syndicates specialising in stealing Toyota Estima.

Kota Setar police chief ACP Adzaman Mohd Jan said the two car theft syndicates had stolen altogether 15 Toyota Estimas in their activities in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor and the cars were smuggled to a neighbouring country.

He said the success was the result of cooperation between the Kedah CID and the Bukit Aman Crime Division which began with the arrest of a 32-year-old man, who was driving a stolen Toyota Estima at KM 8.7 of the Changlun-Bukit Kayu Hitam Highway at 4.30am on Oct 14.

“Police investigation led to the recovery of another stolen Toyota Estima parked near a supermarket in Gurun.

However, the second member of the syndicate is still at large,” he told reporters, here today.

Adzaman said initial investigation found that the syndicate, operated by two men, had smuggled 11 Toyota Estimas stolen from Damansara and Wangsa Maju in Kuala Lumpur to Thailand.

According to him, two men from another syndicate, aged 31 and 34 years, were nabbed 10 days ago after police raided two houses, one in Changlun and the other in Alor Setar. Two stolen Toyota Estimas were recovered from this raid. –Bernama