STEAL-to-order car theft gangs are back at work - with more than 30 vehicles disappearing last week alone - despite a successful police clampdown earlier this year.
Police and insurance officials believe an 'order' has been placed in China for up to 1,000 'secondary luxury vehicles' - such as Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys - to fill a vacuum caused by mainland restrictions on other cars.
Previously, the demand was for top-of-the-range Mercedes, BMWs, Lexus and Toyotas, but the scale of the losses was reduced to a few per month following an anti-theft drive by police on both sides of the border.
In the latest incident, an officer fired a shot yesterday morning when two suspected 'professional' thieves tried to drive away in a stolen vehicle while dragging a policeman, who had grabbed one of the men, through a car park. Emergency Unit officers from Kowloon West later arrested four men and two women, including two watchmen, and recovered three stolen vehicles and a motorbike from the private car park in a property on Fessenden Road.
According to an officer involved in the operation, the police moved in at 4 am after watching a number of cars being driven into a building and left in a secluded area.
'One of the officers grabbed one of the two men's legs as they drove off and he was dragged along the ground within the car park, which was when his colleague fired a shot.' He said no one was injured. Detectives believe the car park was being used to keep the vehicles before smuggling them in bulk across the border.