{"id":68604,"date":"2026-08-10T04:15:40","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T04:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/68604\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T04:15:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T04:15:40","slug":"police-say-hundreds-of-vehicles-are-being-stolen-by-young-thieves-from-gyms-across-melbourne-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/68604\/","title":{"rendered":"Police say hundreds of vehicles are being stolen by young thieves from gyms across Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

Police say more than 200 cars were stolen from gym car parks in a six month period in Melbourne’s south-east alone.<\/p>\n

The theft of cars from gyms has become a major headache for authorities, with the stolen vehicles often then used by young offenders for further crime.<\/p>\n

Victoria Police has now issued a warning to gym users to take extra care to avoid their vehicles being taken while they work out.<\/p>\n

Local police in Melbourne’s south-east reported 250 vehicles were stolen from gyms between November 2025 and April this year, with more than half of those thefts occurring in Greater Dandenong, Casey and Cardinia.<\/p>\n

Victoria Police said children as young as 13 had been arrested after allegedly stealing cars from gym car parks.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Police say gym-goers should secure their keys and valuables to avoid theft while they work out. (Pexels: William Choquette)<\/p>\n

In many cases, youths tailgate gym members into fitness facilities and then steal keys from unattended lockers or open storage cubes.<\/p>\n

Some of the incidents highlighted by police include:<\/p>\n

A boy who stole a car from a gym at Glen Iris and then returned to the same gym two days later to steal another car. The boy and three other teenagers were arrested after a high-speed chase.Four teenage girls, including a 13-year-old, who stole two sets of keys from lockers at a gym in Clyde North. Three of the girls are yet to be found.The theft of keys from a gym at Burwood and subsequent theft of a ute which was used as a getaway car following a suspicious factory fire. A 15-year-old was arrested and charged.<\/p>\n

Late last month, two 14-year-old girls were injured, one critically, after crashing a car that had allegedly been stolen from a gym at Chadstone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A vehicle stolen from a gym was involved in a serious crash at Langwarrin last month. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

Acting Senior Sergeant Benita Pringle from Victoria Police said authorities are having to deal with the consequences of the car thefts.<\/p>\n

“They’re more often than not used to aid further criminality, where offenders try to fly under the radar of police to commit serious and violent crimes,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Most of these car thefts are preventable, and we’re asking gym-goers to take really simple measures before working out to decrease your chance of having your car stolen while you exercise.”<\/p>\n

Police are reminding gym patrons to secure their belongings in lockers, avoid using open storage cubes, prevent tailgating at gym entrances and park in well-lit areas covered by CCTV.<\/p>\n

“Opportunistic thieves are looking for an easy steal with as little effort as possible. Don’t make it any easier for them to take your car,” Acting Senior Sergeant Pringle said.<\/p>\n

“While we’re asking gymgoers to exercise caution, to be aware and report suspicious behaviour, we’re also doing our bit \u2014 we’re working with fitness facilities to target harden and holding offenders to account.”<\/p>\n

Anyone with information about gyms thefts has been urged to contact CrimeStoppers on 1800 333 000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police say more than 200 cars were stolen from gym car parks in a six month period in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1044,312,29490,260,1047,18149,15931],"class_list":["post-68604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-car","tag-crime","tag-gym","tag-melbourne","tag-police","tag-theft","tag-thieves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}