HONG Kong triad gangs are being linked to a sophisticated series of car thefts in Los Angeles which have led to at least one murder.
Authorities in the United States claim would-be car-buyers from China are ''ordering'' luxury cars through Hong Kong middlemen who arrange for associated Californian gangs to steal the desired models.
The cars are then packed in shipping containers and smuggled out of the US to China, usually through Hong Kong or Taiwan.
US customs have intercepted US$4 million (HK$31 million) worth of stolen cars at the Los Angeles port of San Pedro in the past eight months, destined for ports around the world.
And the stakes were upped from theft to murder when a 16-year-old Vietnamese-Chinese youth allegedly killed a 27-year-old estate agent as she went shopping for her wedding dress in her parents' luxury Lexus.
Police at first thought Coung Minh Hoang, charged with murdering Kathy Lee, was just ''carjacking'' when he shot the woman.
Carjacking, in which thieves get round the problems of alarm systems and having to force locks by taking the vehicle from the driver, often by force, has reached epidemic proportions in Southern California and has led to at least a dozen murders.
