HILO >> Data from the Hawaii Police Department show Kona led Hawaii island in auto theft in 2016 and is on track to do so this year, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reports (http://bit.ly/2qalRpx).

The newspaper says today that South Hilo had the highest number of vehicle break-ins on the Big Island by a wide margin last year, and numbers for the first four months of 2017 show that trend continuing.

The Tribune-Herald says there were 161 reports of unauthorized control of a motor vehicle in 2016 in Kona. That’s 95 more than the 66 reported in the South Hilo District for the year and almost half of the 340 unauthorized control reports islandwide in 2016.

Police tells the newspaper that there was a rash of auto thefts in January, with 18 reports of unauthorized control in Kona, nine in Hilo and five in Puna.