a night out with police looking for youth gangs

It’s just past midnight on a Sunday in early March and the streets of Melbourne’s west are dark but crowded. The rain is falling steadily, frustrating Victoria Police Detective Senior Sergeant Stacey Dwyer.

“It’s a good thing during the day because it’s good for sleeping,” he said. “It’s not good for what we’re doing tonight.”

I’m sitting in the back of an unmarked police car as Dwyer and more than a dozen other officers patrol the Melbourne suburbs, where youth gang crime is highest, as part of Victoria Police’s Operation Alliance. In these suburbs – Braybrook, St Albans, Melton and Sunbury – authorities are on high alert for home invasions and aggravated burglaries.

Rain bothers Dwyer because it will reduce visibility and make roads more dangerous. While he mans the radio, his office’s Senior Constable Shannon Hill drives the unmarked car through dreary back streets.

Suddenly a voice crackled on the radio: Just around the corner, police officers pulled over a silver BMW coupe with stolen Queensland plates.

When we arrive, the police are talking to a man in a white tank top and a woman wearing UGG boots while other officers conduct a forensic scan of the car.

Police know the man but he is not part of a youth gang. “He’s a career criminal, so he knows the rules of the game,” Dwyer said.

Although it wasn’t who we were looking for, police later determined the silver BMW had been stolen, making it one of a large and growing number of cars taken off Melbourne’s streets.

Figures released by the Independent Crime Statistics Agency on Thursday reveal more than 32,000 cars were stolen in Victoria last year; This figure is the highest since 2001.

Car thefts have almost doubled since 2022, and there has been an 83.97 percent increase in the rate of stolen vehicles per 100,000 people.

Motor insurance theft claims in Victoria increased by 59 per cent in the 2024-25 financial year, according to the Insurance Council of Australia; In total, more than 12,000 claims were made, totaling $223 million.

Victoria’s total crime rate in 2025 rose by 2.4 per cent to 8885.5 crimes per 100,000 people, but police said its analysis showed crime was starting to stabilize after years of sharp increases.

Victoria Police deputy commissioner of regional operations Bob Hill said the annual increase was forcing police to reconsider their approach to tackling crime.

New police intelligence suggests 30-40 per cent of stolen cars are retrieved using electronic key cloning devices, which are widely used legally by mechanics to unlock and start cars. It can take as little as 10 seconds for a thief to start a car using this technology.

Unlike home invasions and aggravated thefts, especially those committed by young criminals, most cars are stolen by criminals over the age of 25 who learn the trade through criminal networks, Hill said.

But stolen cars are also an important tool for youth crime and gangs.

Stories of teenagers breaking into homes, taking keys and stealing cars feature prominently in Melbourne’s tabloid and TV news.

Sometimes they just go for high-speed rides. On Wednesday, for example, a 16-year-old boy out on bail was charged with felony theft for allegedly stealing a Lamborghini from Maribyrnong, along with a 13-year-old girl and another 16-year-old boy, after cutting off his ankle monitoring bracelet. The trio allegedly evaded police for more than 14 hours and crashed into fences near Glen Waverley shopping center after driving dangerously.

But in other cases, stolen cars are used by gangs to commit violent crimes.

“Some of these criminals are being recruited by organized crime groups to steal vehicles again…young criminals are being used as slaves to go and commit their criminal behavior,” Hill said.

Dwyer tells me from the front seat that many factors contribute to young people joining gangs. These include being from a lower socioeconomic background, being exposed to domestic violence or drugs, and having older siblings or friends who are already gang members.

“It’s very important for us to try to intervene early when we’re with kids who are just starting out,” he says.

This was easier in the past, when scammers often walked a beaten path to a life of crime, from recreational drug use to petty theft to stealing cars. At every stage the police can intervene and try to deter re-offending.

But the modern nature of youth gangs sees young people sometimes progress from having never committed a crime before to committing serious violent offences.

After leaving the stolen BMW behind, calls continue to leak over the police radio, relayed from those who answered the Triple Zero call to a supervisor at the Sunshine police station, and relayed to officers on the road.

A worried mother called the police to report that three cars wearing ski masks passed by her house, called out to her little daughter inside, and threw toilet paper into the house. Another caller said a group of men were at her door threatening to kill her husband.

Dwyer says despite the overall increase in crime, the risk of victimization is still very low.

“I guess what matters is [remember] “Is Victoria really a very safe place to live,” he says while on patrol. “And if it is, what’s this car doing?”

Midway through the conversation, he notices a red Toyota Corolla in the rearview mirror, driving hesitantly behind us. The officers allowed the car to pass and then followed the car. The Corolla is accelerating, but we’re keeping a close eye on it. It belongs to a local rental agency known for lending cars to scammers.

When Dwyer turns on the red and blue police lights, the Corolla slows before its driver accelerates. We don’t follow and watch the tail lights quickly disappear.

“This is how policing has changed,” Dwyer says. “We learned from our past mistakes”

In previous years, police may have followed the car. But he explains that the risk of causing an accident is too great.

“It’s hard though, isn’t it? Most of us say: [we’re] “Like dogs do to cats… but under these conditions, I don’t want that car to speed away from us and crash into a family of five.”

Police now rely on AirWing to track vehicles with thermal cameras and relay movements to officers in the area; they then position themselves at strategic intersections and place “stop sticks” to deflate tires and force passengers to flee on foot.

On the police radio and later at the Sunshine police station, Dwyer and I watch this play shortly before 2 a.m.

AirWing follows three carloads of copper thieves driving along a major highway. The cars were accelerating, causing the engine to heat up and causing the vehicle to glow in the plane’s thermal camera. Nearby general duty police officers were ordered into position and one of the cars hit the stop sticks.

The two men ran and hid in the backyard of a nearby house, but could not escape the camera. “There are two [alleged] “The criminals are there in the yard,” the operator told officers at the scene, “To your right, behind the fence, 10 meters to your right.”

The driver, an alleged 18-year-old man from Eynesbury, was forcibly removed from the yard, detained and charged with theft and other driving offences. His female passenger was released pending further investigation.

Overall, four nights of Operation Alliance patrols resulted in the arrests of 16 people for car theft, outstanding warrants, and drug and weapons possession. Three stolen cars were recovered, three vehicles were seized, 40 bail checks were carried out and 17 offenses relating to bail breaches were detected.

A man has been arrested and charged after a sawn-off shotgun was found inside an allegedly stolen car in St Albans on the final night of the operation.

After watching the AirWing get arrested at the station, Dwyer and his offside depart again around 2 a.m.

It’s been a quiet night by Dwyer’s standards, but after a few hours stuck in the back of a police car, I’m ready to call it quits.

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