Christchurch Police have found more stolen vehicles and parts at a Rolleston scrap metal yard after continuing their search of the premises today.
Investigators have also visited other businesses across the city as part of a clampdown on second-hand and scrap metal dealers.
Police visited Independent Metal Traders in Rolleston yesterday and initially located three stolen vehicles.
Detective Senior Sergeant Corrie Parnell of the Volume Crime unit, says by the time the search team finished for the night at around 6.30pm they had located another three vehicles.
After further searching the premises today Police have now identified a total of 15 stolen vehicles - five vehicles are largely intact, plus engines, panels or other parts from another ten vehicles.
In addition to the three found yesterday, among those identified today were a Nissan Terrano stolen from a CPIT car park on Tuesday which had already been dismantled for parts, a Mazda, half of a Subaru, two sets of stolen number plates, a Nissan Luciano engine, and parts from stolen Nissan and Toyota vehicles.
"Our search has also located two container loads of parts which appeared to be destined for export markets," says Detective Senior Sergeant Parnell.
"It will take our team some time to complete the search and then to catalogue and analyse what we have found.
"This is clearly a large-scale operation, and we will be looking closely at links between offenders, metal dealers and markets for these vehicles and parts.
"Police will be taking a hard line where any offending is identified. The bottom line is that car thefts would not be occurring on the scale we're seeing if it wasn't for receivers who are creating a ready market."
Detective Senior Sergeant Parnell says the illicit activity is largely being driven by high demand for four-wheel drive parts both in New Zealand and internationally.
Police have spoken to the operators of the business, but they have yet to be formally interviewed. No charges have been laid at this stage.
Investigators have visited several other parts and scrap-metal dealers yesterday and today, but no stolen vehicles have been located at other premises to date.
"However we are examining records relating to items such as copper pipe and hot water cylinders from at least one of the businesses.
"Our message to dealers is that they must be vigilant about their customers and their record keeping. Alarm bells should be ringing when customers keep coming back on a regular basis with hot water cylinders and copper - there is no excuse for turning a blind eye."
ENDS