Nabbed: One of the teen suspects of Melaka’s motorcycle theft gang.
MELAKA: The 13-year-old leader of a motorcycle theft syndicate has been detained along with five other teenage members during a series of police raids.
Melaka deputy police chief Senior Asst Comm Md Nazri Nawawi said the Form One student was found to be the mastermind of the syndicate that has been involved in various motorcycle thefts throughout the state since early this year.
“We have solved six cases of missing motorcycles that were reported here with the arrest of the six.
“The statewide raids were conducted between July 4 and July 7,” he said yesterday.
SAC Md Nazri said the teenagers detained are aged between 13 and 17, with two of them still in school.
“The other suspects are school dropouts,” he added.
SAC Md Nazri said the gang members had targeted motorcycles parked outside homes throughout the state.
“The stolen motorcycles were for the gang members’ personal use,” he said.
All the suspects have no record and tested negative for drugs, he said.
The Melaka police, said SAC Md Nazri, had formed a task force to track down the suspects following a report made by a victim from Padang Temu here earlier this month.
“The suspects were detained in various locations in the state by the task force, which also recovered all the stolen items,” he said.
Separately, SAC Md Nazri said three foreigners were detained during a joint operation against second-hand goods dealers in the state.
Those detained were a China national, Pakistani and Myanmar aged between 29 and 65.
SAC Md Nazri said 108 premises dealing in second-hand items were checked since the start of the operation on July 9.
He added that the foreigners had been handed to the Immigration Department while various summonses were issued to the operators of the premises by the different departments involved in the operation.
