By LACHLAN MOORHEAD AND GEORGIA WESTGARTH
AT LEAST 19 teenagers have been processed by police in the last fortnight as the spate of home invasions and luxury car thefts across Casey and Dandenong ramps up.
Twelve of these youths have been remanded in custody, with police investigating at least 30 burglaries in Melbourne’s outer south-east over the last two weeks.
It’s understood almost all of the youths are teenagers.
A police spokesman told Star News it was “rare” to find anyone aged 20 or older involved in the burglaries, where brazen thieves break into occupied homes and steal car keys from a bench.
Last week it was reported that a series of car thefts occurred between Friday 19 and Saturday 20 February and spanned Keysborough, Berwick, Narre Warren South and Wheelers Hill.
Detective Sergeant Ivan Bobetic from the Dandenong Embona Taskforce said last week that investigations into the car thefts and possible links to the notorious ‘apex gang’ remained ongoing.
“It’s certainly an avenue of inquiry – it appears the ‘apex gang’ is so widespread now, however to categorise them as a group or gang is folly at this point in time, it’s just something that we’ve got in the back of our minds and are exploring as part of the investigation,” Det Sgt Bobetic said.
“This type of offending has been occurring for 18 months to two years but not all are related to this group of offenders.”
While those processed in recent weeks are all under 18 years of age, Det Sgt Bobetic said a range of different groups and ages were involved in the burglaries to some degree.
“A lot of them are known to each other,” he said.
“The level of violence and lack of contrition is alarming for their ages – it seems they have no concept of what they are doing, conscience for the victims or they simply don’t care.”
Anyone with any information in relation to this series of offences is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
