Written by Shaun Ho, on The Star
KUALA LUMPUR: The hunt is on for the man behind 80% of pick-up truck and MPV thefts in the country. He is 49-year-old Nyo Ah Hai @ Robin Hai, a central figure in an international syndicate that has been stealing thousands of the vehicles and selling them in Africa, South-East Asia and the Middle East.
Nyo, high on Interpol’s wanted list, is believed to be coordinating the syndicate while based overseas, flitting from country to country to avoid detection. Federal Criminal Intelligence Operations Unit principal assistant director Senior Asst Comm Abd Manaf Abd Razak could not give exact figures but said Nyo had been involved in the theft of thousands of vehicles worth millions of ringgit.
It is learnt that Nyo has been operating from as early as 2007 and that Interpol has issued a Red Notice seeking his location and arrest with a view to extraditing him.
SAC Abd Manaf said Nyo might have assumed a new identity and this made it difficult for the authorities to detect him whenever he returned to Malaysia. He was identified after his name was mentioned by many arrested car thieves. SAC Abd Manaf said Nyo’s modus operandi was to contact local car theft gangs once he received orders from abroad.
“The stolen cars are kept at various warehouses before they are shipped overseas,” he told reporters at Bukit Aman.
He said that only certain makes were shipped whole, with Japanese marques the preferred target. Locally-assembled cars and older models were usually cannibalised for spare parts.
“The thieves usually go for vehicles of less than a year old and in good condition so they can be easily sold,” SAC Abd Manaf added. Police believed that several forwarding agencies were involved in preparing export documents whether or not they knew the vehicles were stolen. “The vehicles are stolen for use in various conditions. Pick-ups are for use in the Middle-Eastern deserts and South-East Asian jungles.
Pick-ups can be sold for up to RM40,000 while MPVs can go for as high as RM70,000
SAC Abd Manaf
Police raided two stores linked to Nyo in Johor and Port Klang this year and recovered 30 vehicles. Nyo was nabbed for car theft in 2003, but has not been caught since his name resurfaced in 2007 although several warrants of arrest have been issued for him. Other countries looking to apprehend Nyo include Singapore and Indonesia.
Nyo’s last known address was Nibong Tebal, Penang. People with information on him can contact SAC Abd Manaf at 03-2266 6091 or ASP Mohd Khairuddin Mohd Noor at 019-2722 302.
It was reported last year that an average of 150 vehicles were stolen a day in the country, with Proton and Perodua models topping the list of 112,503 whisked away since 2010. Then Federal CID director Comm Datuk Seri Mohd Bakri Zinin said the high number of thefts was due to the demand not only for new but also old vehicles, which are cannibalised for their parts.
Stolen vehicles statistics
A total of 57,462 vehicle thefts were reported in 2010 while the number was 55,041 as of September 2011, he said.
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