An extra 20 Auckland police officers have been told to focus on burglaries in an effort to solve more of them.

Photo: RNZ / Diego Opatowski

At the moment, nearly 95 percent of the the city's burglaries are unresolved.

The police said under Operation Resolve, which was announced today, officers would put pressure on known burglary offenders.

The head of the operation, Detective Senior Sergeant Iain Chapman, told Checkpoint with John Campbell burglars were becoming more confident and active in the city.

"We've seen in the last wee while in the Auckland city district a spike," he said.

"We had a very successful operation run late last year called Operation Pinetree that was targeting volume crime, the burglars and that. That operation's wrapped up and we've unfortunately just seeing it start to rise again.

"So we've doing with this operation - we've got 20-strong, and we're targeting specifically the burglars."

Mr Chapman said the police would also strongly oppose bail for those accused of burglary.

Separately, the police have said international students in Auckland are being targeted in aggravated robberies, following eight arrests in a week.

Four 12- to 14-year-olds were arrested after pushing a young woman to the ground and trying to steal her handbag on Khyber Pass Road on Monday evening.

The police said they were being dealt with by Youth Aid, and two more arrests were likely this week.

Last week, two women were attacked and robbed in Albert Park on Tuesday, and a student was attacked in Oakley Creek on Thursday evening.

The police said they were concerned about the attacks, but said there was nothing to suggest the attacks were becoming more frequent.