THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 23, 1997 TAG: 9701230361
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 61 lines
Thieves working with the precision of a NASCAR pit crew broke into 32 cars at Mega Mazda Tuesday night and carved out 60 air bags valued at $60,000, police said.
Who would steal 60 air bags? All signs point to professional car-parts thieves, who can sell them on the black market.
In some cases, the thieves bypassed car security alarms, Virginia Beach police spokesman Mike Carey said. They didn't break car windows. They broke in through the door latches with only ``minor paint chipping,'' said Mega Mazda President Larry Heischober.
``They very neatly took out the air bags,'' Heischober said. ``These are experts. These are surgeons.''
The break-ins at Mega Mazda were the first large-scale theft of air bags in Virginia Beach, said Sgt. Patrick Gough, who heads the city's auto theft unit. Gough said he has not heard of another multiple air bag theft in the region.
But as air bags become more prevalent in cars, a black market has developed in big cities such as Detroit, New York and Los Angeles. Recently, air bag thefts have been spreading to places like Dallas and Denver, and cities as small as Lancaster, Pa., according to news reports.
Air bag thefts are proliferating fast enough that some authorities believe they will soon surpass car stereos as the most sought-after black market car item. Air bag thefts rose 77 percent between 1994 and 1996, according to State Farm Insurance Co.
A new air bag that a car dealer sells for $400 to $1,200 costs between $50 and $200 on the black market, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau.
Air bags can be easily removed in five minutes or less if the thief knows how to do it - otherwise it might take an hour per bag. Police are almost certain that more than one person extracted the bags at Mega Mazda, because of the number stolen.
Dishonest car repair shops can install the stolen bags as new ones, and charge the customer or insurance company full price, the NICB says.
Air bag thieves are also creating their own demand; a car owner whose air bag is stolen still needs to have it replaced.
One reason Mega Mazda was likely targeted for the thefts, Heischober said, was that not much traffic passes the Holland Road lot in the middle of the night . The air bags were stolen sometime after the lot closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday and before it opened Wednesday morning.
The thieves must have been looking for a Mazda dealership, Gough said, since Mazda air bags would not fit another kind of car.
``Somebody must have had an order for these so they could get rid of these things,'' he said. ``My guess is it would go to one of the major cities up or down the Eastern Seaboard.''
Heischober's not taking any more chances at Mega Mazda. He says he's likely going to hire a night security guard and block access to the lot at night.
``Everything I'd heard about this so far has been on the national news about larger metropolitan areas,'' Heischober said. ``This is a first for here, but probably won't be the last.''
Thieves broke into 32 vehicles at night. MEMO: Anyone with information on the thefts can call Virginia Beach's
Crime Solvers hot line at 427-0000.
KEYWORDS: ROBBERIES AIR BAGS