A seven-member gang was sentenced by a local court recently for stealing valuables from hundreds of private vehicles in Shanghai. The prison sentences ranged from four and a half years to nearly 11 years, police said yesterday.

The gang started operating two years ago, targeting high-end cars parked in shopping centers and supermarkets in the city and its suburbs.

Nanhui District police arrested four gang members on March 5 this year and picked up three others on March 26 from Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.

Police said the men were addicted to gambling. They were charged with breaking into more than 100 vehicles and stealing valuables worth more than 1 million yuan (US$146,700).

Police could not recover any of the stolen goods as the men had sold them off and gambled away the money. They did seize more than 20 sets of lock-picking tools.

After their arrest, the men allegedly told officers that they worked in pairs and could break open any car door in a couple of minutes.

While one of them worked on opening the door, the other would check out the trunk.

The men would target three to four vehicles in a parking lot. The entire operation did not take them more than half an hour.

Their luck, however, did not last.

Four of the gang members were caught on surveillance tapes at an underground supermarket parking lot on February 2 in Huinan Town, Nanhui District.

Four of them had come for the operation and stole 2,500 yuan in cash, but their suspicious movements gave them away, authorities said.

Security officers noticed that the men did not behave like normal shoppers as they loitered around without buying anything.

The videotape provided key evidence to Nanhui District police investigators who were already on the lookout for a gang after a series of similar crimes in the area.

Police said the gang usually drove into Shanghai from Suzhou, in Jiangsu Province, in the early afternoon and headed back between 9pm and midnight the same day.

They used different cars during the operation and used stolen car plates to cover their tracks.

Police said the gang also was involved in stealing car plates. They would change the car plates after the operation.

(Shanghai Daily October 10, 2008)