Wrecker with flashy car and expensive jewellery ‘embarrassed’ by his crimes

Thursday, 13 November 2025

A car wrecker who owns a $350,000 Mercedes and $1.3 million home says he is ashamed he received nearly $1m worth of stolen cars to export - something he earlier denied to The Press while making threats.

Abdul Karim Alizadah, who also goes by the surname Ahmadi, had no qualms about flaunting the fruits of his illicit side hustle. While driving his flashy car he wore expensive watches and bought gold jewellery for his wife after the exports began, almost always paying with cash.

He was sentenced to three years and three months imprisonment at the Christchurch District Court on Wednesday by Judge Quentin Hix. In statements summarised by the judge, 10 stolen car victims laid out the harm the thefts had caused them. One vehicle was being used to transport a wheelchair-bound relative of the owner when it was stolen. Another held great sentimental value.

Many described a loss of trust in society, Judge Hix said. “It is always very sad to read that people go through their lives in New Zealand thinking we’re a safe society, and then that trust is broken.”

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Tucked in a maze of quiet side streets, Lion Auto Dismantlers is spread across two large sections near the foot of Christchurch’s Port Hills. Its 2.4m highfences obstruct a large yard laden with shipping containers and, crucially, the inside of the warehouse - the beating heart of a more sinister operation. Ahmadi is the business’s sole director.

The yard and another linked to it in Wellington received what is thought to be more than $1 million worth of stolen cars from late 2023 to mid-2024. They were chopped and sold for parts, mostly to the United Arab Emirates. The illicit dealings involved a WhatsApp group chat and a burner phone taped to a toilet cistern.

Registered to Lion Auto Dismantlers was a 2023 Mercedes-AMG G63 worth $350,000, registration ALIZDA. The car, watches and other jewellery were seized after police and Customs descended on the yard and arrested Ahmadi in September of last year.

Lion Auto Dismantlers was closed when The Press visited in February - the same week the assets were seized. The Mercedes was parked in the driveway of Ahmadi’s $1.3m Wigram home. Two of his relatives answered the door and said he wasn’t there. One threatened and filmed this journalist.

“We’ve got people as well,” he said.

The allegations made by police were false and the family would fight them, the man claimed at the time.

He confirmed the Mercedes was taken by police, but at that time was returned to the family because it was being paid for by finance. “We’re using it everyday. We can use it, we can do whatever the f… we want with it … they didn’t have proof of [it] being paid for by cash.

“If I see anything up on media, it won’t be good. I’ve got your photo as well… The house and the car and the jewellery has nothing to do with this,” he said.

Later, two men on the other end of Ahmadi’s phone both identified themselves as being him. They said they did not recognise that any of the cars were stolen when they received them.

One threatened this journalist with legal action. “We’ll be coming after you,” he said. He said this journalist was trespassed from visiting them, then hung up.

Six months later Ahmadi pleaded guilty to 18 charges of receiving stolen property worth over $1000. He admitted two other charges - failing to keep a proper secondhand dealer’s record and failing to keep articles in an unaltered state - related to the fake names and car models he entered when stolen cars came through his gates.

On Wednesday, his lawyer Phillip McDonnell said the Ahmadi family fled the Taliban in Afghanistan to Iraq in the early 2000s, before arriving in New Zealand as refugees. “He’s very embarrassed and culturally embarrassed,” he said. “This has brought great shame to his family.”

In written material Ahmadi explained he did not know that the cars were stolen, but accepted that he did not make proper checks. Crown prosecutor Will Taffs took umbrage with that.

“This to be very clear was not one giant mistake,” Taffs said. “This is not a case of cultural ignorance. There is no culture in the world where receiving stolen cars, chopping them up and selling them is appropriate.”

More than a hundred cars were received as part of the wider operation.

“The scale is almost unmatched in this type of case,” Taffs said.

“We’re looking at a staggering loss.”

McDonnell indicated Ahmadi would be appealing his sentence. His wife was in tears in the public gallery as he was taken into the cells.