Four reports relating to two vehicles prompted officers to speak with their owners, Auckland Central area commander inspector Grae Anderson said.<\/p>\n
The vehicles had reportedly unsettled some members of the Chinese community who had spotted the vehicles on the road.<\/p>\n
A Chinese New Zealander spotted a vehicle that looked like a Chinese police car parked on the corner of Shortland and Princes Streets in central Auckland on 10 September.<\/p>\n
The witness spoke on condition of anonymity due to a fear her ability to visit China might be compromised.<\/p>\n
“There is quite an explicit logo on the side of the door saying ‘Gong An’, or Chinese police,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The patterns look identical [to the markings on real Chinese police cars].”<\/p>\n
The witness said the markings would make some in the Chinese community feel uneasy.<\/p>\n
“It’s quite frightening, as over the years that we have heard rumours [about] Chinese police operating overseas,” she said, noting that security forces in China carried enormous power.<\/p>\n
“It’s pretty intimidating [for] a Chinese person who understands the context behind it.”<\/p>\n
Anderson told RNZ on Thursday that police acknowledged the concerns raised by members of the public.<\/p>\n
“The owners [of the cars bearing police markings] were made aware that the vehicles had caused some concerns and indicated that wasn’t their intent,” Anderson said.<\/p>\n
Police: Vehicles have no official status<\/p>\n
“We had a discussion with the owners and suggested that the removal of the decals would prevent the reoccurrence of further concerns and both parties indicated they would remove the decals.”<\/p>\n
Anderson reassured the community that the vehicles were not New Zealand Police vehicles and did not have any official status or authority on behalf of New Zealand Police.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/chinese-police-car-TNZGC5R2PVGS5COWXDTONHBLQU.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The livery of a police car in China. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n
He encouraged people with further concerns relating to the matter to get in touch with police.<\/p>\n
The Chinese Embassy had earlier said the vehicles had nothing to do with China.<\/p>\n
A variety of decals used to decorate vehicles are available online, with police markings from different countries among the options.<\/p>\n
In addition to the cars displaying Chinese police markings, other images of vehicles in New Zealand bearing Japan and US police insignias have been shared on social media.<\/p>\n
When first approached by RNZ, police said it was an offence for an ordinary vehicle to resemble a police vehicle, craft or conveyance under the 2008 Policing Act.<\/p>\n
“A person commits an offence who, without reasonable excuse, represents any vehicle, craft, or other conveyance as being in the service of the Police in circumstances likely to lead a person to believe the vehicle, craft, or conveyance is in the service of the Police,” the relevant provision in the act states.<\/p>\n
Police clarified the legislation only applied to New Zealand Police.<\/p>\n
Law professor says rules may need to change<\/p>\n
Al Gillespie, a law professor at the University of Waikato, said decorating a car as a foreign police vehicle wasn’t illegal itself, but more might need to be done in the area if the problem kept arising.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s going to cause … problems, and you might need to have some rules around it going forward in future, especially if these are used to intimidate people,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But, at the moment, the law is about New Zealand police vehicles.”<\/p>\n
Gillespie said outlawing certain markings that were currently available as decals would need to be specifically banned by legislation in the same way as gang insignias.<\/p>\n
He said it was good for police to raise concerns about intimidation with owners directly as a soft path going forward.<\/p>\n
“This is a grey area, and it may be that we want law in this place so that no one can do it,” he said.<\/p>\n
Gillespie stressed that foreign agencies had no jurisdiction in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
“Foreign police have no powers in New Zealand,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We are a sovereign country. We make our own laws. We have our own excellent police force and we enforce our own rules.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police have moved to reassure Auckland’s Chinese community after cars displaying what appeared to be foreign police markings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,42,43,40,38,41,39,112],"class_list":["post-603162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}