FIFTEEN luxury cars worth about $7 million have been recovered by detectives in the biggest swoop of its kind in a year, following an upsurge in the theft of expensive vehicles.
Organised Crime and Triad Bureau (OCTB) officers also arrested seven men in the series of raids throughout the territory, which confirmed the use of containers as the main method of transporting the stolen cars across the border.
Previously, most vehicles had been smuggled to China by sea on multi-engined tai feis operating from the mainland.
A police spokesman said OCTB officers launched ''intensive investigations'' following the traditional upsurge in luxury car thefts prior to the Lunar New Year.
The arrests and seizure of 12 BMWs, one Mercedes and two Japanese cars were made by OCTB's A-Division, which specialised in investigating the theft of stolen luxury vehicles.
''Following the recovery of four stolen vehicles in a car-park of a private housing estate in Lam Tin on February 3, officers put a number of locations in the New Territories under close surveillance,'' a police spokesman said.