Stolen vehicles now online

As of today, a list of all vehicles stolen in New Zealand in the past six months is available at www.police.govt.nz/stolen/vehicles

Deputy Commissioner Mike Bush says the new initiative is free, up-to-date and provides a simple, on the spot way of checking on a vehicle.

The new database was officially launched at a meeting of the Crime Prevention Partnership Forum (CPPF) in Wellington today."

"This has been an initiative that's been developed in partnership with the CPPF, a group that represents a wide range of businesses that want to help Police to prevent crime."

Many of the businesses involved in CPPF will get great benefits from the database, Mr Bush said.

"It will be a resource for security guards, insurance companies, moteliers, scrap metal dealers and community policing patrols.

"It also has obvious benefits for people buying second-hand vehicles, garages that service vehicles and service stations where petrol thefts can regularly be associated with stolen vehicles."

The data-base allows the search via registration plate number, VIN, engine or chassis number. This is run against all outstanding stolen flagged numbers.

A hit will return the make, vehicle type and colour, and when the vehicle was reported stolen.

Users can also generate a list of all outstanding vehicles that have been stolen during the past six months for all of New Zealand or in a single police district or combination of districts.

"Potentially, it gives police many more pairs of eyes out there. People can do their own checking and then report it to Police.

"It's an extra deterrent for offenders because now anyone with a smart phone can run the vehicle through the data-base on the spot, The risk of being caught with a stolen vehicle has just risen considerably."

The data-base will be updated three times a day. Police are hoping that with its introduction rates of vehicle theft will continue to decrease and more stolen vehicles will be recovered.

ENDS

Crime Prevention Partnership Forum

Background

The CPPF is a high level partnership between Police and business that has been running since December 2009.

The forum came into being because of a desire for a more productive relationship between Police and business to prevent crime and make communities safer.

The CPPF gives Police and business the opportunity to network and share initiatives that disrupt and minimise criminal offending such as retail theft, fraud, and robbery.

The Forum combines the resources and goodwill of members to improve community safety through:

• developing crime prevention initiatives nationally
• sharing information effectively to disrupt criminal activity
• aligning resources and activities to effectively prevent crime

The CPPF Executive members are:

NZ Security Association (NZSA)
Insurance Council of NZ (ICNZ)
NZ Retailers Association
NZ Bankers Association (NZBA)
NZ Institute of Professional Investigators (NZIPI)
American Society for Industrial Security International (ASIS)
Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE)
Motel Association of NZ
Telecommunications Industry Group (TIG)
NZ Police

ENDS

Key Points to note

• Recorded offences have dropped from 32,000 to 20,000 (approx) over the past 15 years. This means that around a third less cars are being stolen.
• Police would like to continue to see a further decline in recorded offences and would also like to see a rise in resolutions, including the recovery of stolen vehicles. The public can assist in this by checking the database and reporting hits to Police.

Stolen Vehicle Stats
Source: NZ Police
Yearly Data

© Scoop Media