Southern Metro Region Crime Squad detectives are investigating a series of 21 offences committed by a group of youths over five days.
Several teenagers stole two vehicles, a white 2026 Haval Jolion and a black 2017 Honda Odyssey now displaying stolen registration plates XUW815, from outside a Glen Waverley gym about 5pm on Monday.
The offenders then used these vehicles to rob mostly lone women across Melbourne\u2019s bay-side and south-eastern suburbs, including four on Thursday night (Sep. 24):
\u2022 About 7.45pm a 64-year-old woman was dragged by several offenders and had her groceries stolen while waiting at traffic lights outside Chadstone Shopping Centre
\u2022 A short time later a woman was punched in the face and had her designer purse stolen outside Chadstone Shopping Centre
\u2022 About 8pm a woman was shoved to the ground and had her bag stolen on the Princes Hwy in Clayton
\u2022 About 8.10pm a woman had her handbag stolen as she left a hairdressers on Bluff Rd in Highett
\u2022 About 8.40pm the offenders were loitering at a convenience store on Bluff Rd in Black Rock, before chasing a male staff member with a machete. They stole cash and the victim was not physically injured.
n In earlier incidents, on Wednesday (Sep. 23) a 74-year-old Beaumaris woman was walking along Beach Rd, Beaumaris, when a white Haval SUV stopped nearby.
A young male passenger, wearing a balaclava, exited the vehicle and snatched the woman\u2019s handbag.
A short struggle ensued, during which the woman sustained minor injuries.
The handbag, containing cash and a mobile phone, was stolen.
The male then re-entered the vehicle, which drove away along Beach Rd.
The following day, a 54-year-old Highett woman was walking near the intersection of Bluff Rd and Highett Rd when the same white Haval SUV stopped nearby.
A young male passenger, wearing a balaclava, exited the vehicle and snatched the woman\u2019s bag, which contained personal items including her purse.
The male then re-entered the vehicle, which drove north along Bluff Rd.
The woman was not injured during the incident.
All up the group are believed to be involved in:
\u2022 Six robberies
\u2022 One attempted robbery
\u2022 Two armed robberies
\u2022 One attempted aggravated burglary
\u2022 Two aggravated burglaries
\u2022 One burglary
\u2022 One theft of number plate
\u2022 Eight petrol drive-offs
Detectives are investigating and appeal to anyone with information to come forward.
Police have released images of the white Havel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Southern Metro Region Crime Squad detectives are investigating a series of 21 offences committed by a group of youths over five days.Several teenagers stole two vehicles, a white 2026 Haval Jolion and a black 2017 Honda Odyssey now displaying stolen registration plates XUW815, from outside a Glen Waverley gym about 5pm on Monday.The offenders then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_siteseo_robots_primary_cat":"none","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21242,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21235\/revisions\/21242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dindi.com.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}