Chris Hemsworth. Photo: Kevin Paul / Wikimedia Commons, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=183658124" target="_blank" rel="noopener">own work</a>, CC BY 4.0. Cropped and extended with a blurred border.
Four unknown people entered Chris Hemsworth and Elsa Pataky’s property in Broken Head, New South Wales, and made off with three vehicles, police told TMZ. Officers were called to the property around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. By Thursday, all three vehicles had been found and seized for forensic examination, and no arrests had been reported.
What police have told TMZ so far
TMZ reported that law enforcement said the four suspects allegedly entered the property and stole the vehicles earlier that day. Citing 7News, TMZ said the vehicles were a BYD, a Ram and a Raptor ute. It also reported, again citing 7News, that Pataky spotted the masked suspects on CCTV, that two of them allegedly had knives, and that she had woken around 2 a.m. to barking dogs and let it go before she and Hemsworth called police.
Two of the vehicles were later recovered in Coraki and Tabulam, according to TMZ’s police source. The third turned up Thursday in Lennox Head. Police said no one was hurt, and the investigation is ongoing. I could not find a NSW Police release on the break-in, so the police account here comes through TMZ, and the CCTV and knife details come from 7News by way of TMZ. Neither Hemsworth nor Pataky has been quoted in the reports I reviewed.
How New South Wales grades a break-in like this
Nobody has been reported charged, so none of what follows applies to anyone yet. It does show why “armed” and “four people” matter in a case like this. The Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) sets a 14-year maximum for breaking and entering and committing a serious indictable offence under section 112(1). The Judicial Commission of NSW’s sentencing bench book lists the aggravated version, section 112(2), at 20 years. Under section 105A(1), the circumstances of aggravation include being armed with an offensive weapon, being in the company of another person or persons, and knowing someone is in the place.
Whether prosecutors would allege any of those depends on what, if anything, they charge. Two knives and four people are the facts a court would test if it gets that far. Until then they are allegations relayed by a news outlet.
Vehicle theft in NSW is flat, not climbing
The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research counted 14,662 motor vehicle theft incidents statewide in the 12 months to June 2026, against 14,876 a year earlier, and labeled the two-year trend stable. That is a 1.4% drop by Backfire News’s arithmetic. The statewide count covers every kind of vehicle theft and does not break out home break-ins where several vehicles are taken, so the Broken Head case can’t be read as a trend in either direction.
Backfire News has covered similar cases: a pair of stolen Raptors caught at a gas station, an actor’s Volvo taken outside his Los Angeles home, and masked teens filmed in a stolen Lamborghini on a Melbourne highway.
A recovered vehicle is also evidence
Police told TMZ all three vehicles were seized for forensic examination, so recovery did not mean the vehicles went straight back to their owners. The next public step is an arrest, a charge or a court appearance. None had been reported as of Thursday.
Should a thief who carries a knife into someone’s garage face the aggravated penalty even if nobody ever meets him, or should the higher tier apply only when a person is actually confronted?
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