Westfield Carindale and Booval Fair Shopping Centre, cars targeted

Two Queensland shopping centres have had vehicles in their carparks targeted multiple times in the past few weeks, with one woman’s wheels stolen in the time it took to do her grocery shopping.

Two tyres had been taken from a car parked at Booval Fair Shopping Centre. Picture: Supplied

Two Queensland shopping centres have had their carparks targeted multiple times in a couple of weeks, with one woman’s wheels stolen in under an hour while she was grocery shopping.

Rose Bayliss said she went shopping at Booval Fair Shopping Centre with her kids on Thursday February 2.

“I parked my car in an undercover car park under security cameras, went and did my grocery shopping, my kids had called me and said the car was missing two wheels,” Ms Bayliss said.

“The wheels were gone on the passenger side of my car, if I had walked up to my car on my own, I would’ve gotten in and attempted to drive away and that would have caused a lot of damage.”

Ms Bayliss said she had been shopping for less than an hour and did not expect for this to happen.

“It’s quite a shock, its never happened before,” she said.

Since the incident occurred, Ms Bayliss had put locknuts on all her wheels.

She said she hoped by telling her story it would make people aware to have a look at their wheels before they head into their cars.

Two tyres had been taken from a car parked at Booval Fair Shopping Centre. Picture: Supplied

A Queensland Police spokeswoman said no charges had been laid and investigations had been inconclusive at this stage.

It is understood, Westfield Carindale has had several incidents in the past couple months.

On January 26, Grace, who was shopping at the centre said she saw two adults running towards a parked car away from the escalator holding a paper bag.

“He pulled an item out of the bag which was a screw driver and he’s used that to get into the car. When he’s done that the alarm has gone off,” she said.

“I ran inside to the concierge and said hey just letting you know there’s dodgy people outside.

“The response I got is ‘this happens all the time’.

“By the time I got out of the concierge area, the men had exited the car park, security were following them and they exited the car park in the car.”

Grace said the car the men left in had a piece of paper stuck on the number plate.

“It was a bit unexpected that it’s happening in shopping centres, in broad daylight in an affluent area,” she said.

“The comments from the concierge, eluded to me that this happens quite regularly.”

A Queensland Police spokeswoman said police were aware of an incident that occurred on January 26 around 2.30pm where two men were stealing sunglasses and ran off. She said they were investigating the incident.

It is understood on a separate occasion the staff car park had been targeted and catalytic converters were taken.

RACQ spokeswoman Kate Leonard-Jones said there had been theft in catalytic converters during Covid.

“Police issued warnings to car owners about the theft of these components toward the end of last year, with thieves tending to target areas like car yards, dealerships, vehicle servicing centres and vehicles left parked on streets where they can use tools to remove this component from the under body of the vehicle without being disturbed easily,” she said.