Thieves following shoppers home

Women are being encouraged to shop in pairs to avoid being targeted by criminals who are robbing up to six people a week on average in south and east Auckland.

Police say thieves are staking out shopping areas such as the Botany Town Centre and Westfield in Manukau City in their hunt for "soft targets" - mainly the elderly, and Asian women shopping alone.

In many cases the victims have been confronted in carparks and their handbags taken, although a number of women were followed home and robbed.

Police are investigating whether a 51-year-old woman who was punched and robbed in her Flatbush home on Monday afternoon had been followed from a shopping centre.

Detective Senior Sergeant Sue Schwalger said the European woman had been shopping in central Auckland and Manukau City before driving home around 1.15pm.

She used an automatic door opener to get into her garage and was pursued inside by a Maori or Pacific Island man aged between 15 and 25.

The woman struggled with the man and was punched. He took her handbag, containing cash and credit cards, and ran to a waiting vehicle.

Ms Schwalger urged people returning home at any time of the day to be vigilant.

Detective Senior Sergeant Dave Pizzini, head of the district's eastern area criminal investigation branch, has also urged shoppers to check they are not being followed, and suggested women shop in pairs or as a couple.

"What we would encourage, whenever possible, is people shop in pairs because we notice it's only one person who gets victimised.

"If women, instead of going to the shopping centre on the way home, teamed up with their husband and went a little bit later their chances of being targeted would be substantially reduced, if not eliminated."

People were being followed to their vehicles from cash machines and supermarkets.

"Some of them are being followed home, where the offences are happening," Mr Pizzini said.

"It's only a matter of time, I think, before somebody gets stabbed or seriously injured because the offenders are using weapons now. It's not just bag snatches - they are producing blunt instruments and knives when they're committing these offences - particularly if the victims are showing some resistance."

Police have been using ethnic media to pass on crime prevention messages to the east Auckland community.

"When women are shopping on their own they need to be vigilant for people that are following them and people watching them. If they do notice somebody following them they should drive to the nearest public place ... and ring police and report the vehicle," Mr Pizzini said.

Botany Town Centre manager Robyn Burns said the centre worked closely with police and had used undercover police and security guards to combat a spate of handbag snatches.

She was not aware of shoppers being followed home from the centre.

Senior Sergeant Danny Meade of the Mt Wellington police said criminals were probably eyeing up the new Sylvia Park shopping centre to steal from cars, shoplift and commit robbery.

"The persons who might take advantage of such situations are sort of sitting back and waiting to see the lie of the land there.

"We're quite confident there's going to be a large spike in offending there simply because it's a large concentration of people, vehicles, shopping and cash."


BUYER BEWARE

* Police last month charged four men over 14 aggravated robberies in the eastern suburbs. The cases involved Asian couples and women followed home from restaurants in Meadowlands Plaza, Howick, and robbed as they drove into their garages.

* North Shore police have charged six women with more than 200 counts of theft, receiving and fraud in what is alleged to be a "criminal enterprise" targeting elderly women in shopping centre car parks from November 2005 until recently. It is alleged almost $170,000 was stolen.