The Sydney suburbs where luxury cars are being stolen for gang hits
Drive a Mercedes-Benz? You’re likely to be in the sights of car thieves, who have stolen at least 210 of the luxury vehicles across the city in the past two years.
The theft of high-powered European cars from driveways and outside homes throughout Sydney is now of major concern to police, who formed Strike Force Sweetenham in 2021 to address what they see as a concerning trend – teenagers or young adults breaking into homes, largely in wealthy suburbs, to steal car keys.
Number of cars stolen
January 2022 to January 2024
Showing a low-resolution version of the map. Make sure your browser supports WebGL to see the full version.
Cars are taken, police say, then either sold to criminal syndicates and used as getaways in underworld hits or filmed driving at extreme speeds, without seatbelts or on the wrong side of the road in videos for social media.
Data obtained by the Herald shows that Mosman was the top destination for boosting high-powered vehicles from wealthy homes in the past two years, with 55 thefts. Bellevue Hill and Dover Heights in the city’s east followed with 50 and 41 cars stolen, respectively.
Apart from Mercedes-Benz, BMW (146), Audi (129), Porsche (65), and Land Rover (57) were the other popular cars for thieves.
The operation has netted 393 people who have faced a combined total of 3299 offences over the past two years. Children committed 2100 of those alleged crimes, police say.
Luxury stolen cars
Reported stolen to police while people were at home
Of the 393 people, police allege 155 were repeat offenders. Being in a stolen car, aggravated break and enter in company and aggravated break and enter while people are in the home were the most common offences committed by the offenders picked up by Strike Force Sweetenham, the data shows.
Car boosters rely mostly on an unlocked window or door or a doggy door to gain access to keys, an old-fashioned crime that used to reward its perpetrators with jewellery or cash.
“We cannot emphasise enough just how important it is to secure your house, to protect both your family and your property,” Strike Force Sweetenham Commander Detective Superintendent Darren Newman said.
“Hearing a strange noise, witnessing unfamiliar faces at odd hours, or any other out-of-place occurrences should be reported to us immediately.”
Some of the cars, Sweetenham would discover, had allegedly been stored and used in gangland murders.
It is a well-established pattern in Sydney’s underworld to steal high-performance cars from neighbourhoods far from where the murder is planned, then store them for several months. Cloned numberplates are added, and then the car is used to transport a gunman to or from an assassination. The cars are then left in neighbouring suburbs, bleached to remove DNA evidence and set alight.
Police refused to comment on which murders the cars investigated by Sweetenham were used in, citing operational reasons.
Sally Rawsthorne is a Crime Reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via Twitter or email.
