KUALA LUMPUR: Bright or gaudy-coloured vehicles are apparently the best way to thwart potential car thieves.
It appears that overly decorated cars with unique markings, stickers or paint are the least targeted by thieves as they are easily identifiable from afar.
In a recent interview with the federal police CID intelligence and operations division head, principal assistant director SAC Alzafny Ahmad, theSun learnt that car thieves are picky when choosing their targets to avoid being spotted and to make a clean getaway.
He said thieves would avoid such cars and often went for those that were kept in “standard” condition.
“A simple marking or a colourful sticker, even if it is small, can often help in quick identification by police, especially when a car is reported missing. These features must be clearly disclosed by the owner when alerting police of their missing car,“ he said.
Alzafny said apart from the car’s appearance, conventional methods of securing a car such as the use of steering wheel locks and gear locks and pedal clamps have proven to be a deterrent.
He said sand-blasting of vehicle registration plate numbers on the windows and windscreens of cars is also encouraged as it reveals the real identity of the vehicle when a thief transports it with fake number plates fitted.
“A car thief does not take his time,” he said.
“He is swift and wants to get away from the scene as quickly as he can. Hence, additional security features like a steering lock is time-consuming to undo and can delay a thief and deter him from picking the car.
“Sophisticated and high-tech car burglar alarms are some form of security but might be no match for a car thief. They have advanced gadgets that can undo the anti-theft devices quite quickly. If the car is equipped with a GPS tracking system, the thieves would use a signal jammer to stop it from sending out signals. This will restrict the owner from tracing the whereabouts of the vehicle.”
Last week, a video went viral on social media showing a man unlocking the electronic locks with a green-coloured handheld device, smaller than a mobile phone.
The video, that appears to be shot in a basement carpark, showed the man demonstrating how the device worked to another man in Bahasa Malaysia.
The video was shared with a message that said the device was being sold at electronics shops along Jalan Pasar here.
Asked about the device, Alzafny said police are aware of the video and had conducted checks at the places it was purported sold.
“On receiving the video, we sent our personnel to the area to verify if it is being sold by traders. However, we found there were none. What we know is these devices are sold on the internet.”
On Tuesday, theSun reported in its front page about the steep decline in vehicle thefts over the past five years by intensifying special operations and invoking preventive laws on car thieves. The measures effectively lowered car theft cases by over 75% in five years.
