Delhi Police bust carjacking racket, recover 10 luxury cars

New Delhi, Nov 1 (IANS) The Delhi Police have arrested four men who used a software tab (palmtop) to prepare a duplicate key of a car before stealing it, an officer said on Wednesday, adding that they have also recovered 10 stolen luxury cars including Toyota Fortuner and Alcazar, 50 master keys and 10 fake number plates from the gang.

The accused were identified as Mohd. Sablu (24), Mohd. Asif (22), both residents of Sambhal in Uttar Pradesh, Sagar Barman (23) and Pasang Tamang (33), both residents of Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh. 

According to the police, while analysing the trends of thefts of high end luxury cars, it was observed that Fortuners/ Creta, Alcazar, Honda City, I20, Tata Nexon cars were mostly targeted by the lifters. 

“Accordingly, the pattern was studied to bust the organised syndicate who were involved in dealing in these highly valuable cars. Manual as well as technical surveillance was mounted. Finally, specific inputs were developed about the stolen luxury cars, which were being delivered to North-Eastern parts of India,” said Special Commissioner of Police (crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav. 

"Multiple raids were conducted in various parts of Aligarh, Meerut, Sambhal, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Siliguri, Guwahati and Itanagar and 10 cars were recovered while four men, including the receiver of the stolen cars were arrested,” said Yadav, 

On interrogation, Sablu disclosed that to live a lavish life, he started selling stolen cars to Arunachal Pradesh based people and came in contact with Tamang and Barman. He started dealing in stolen cars with them and organised a crime syndicate. 

“It was also revealed that Sablu was in touch with many stolen car receivers, who were receiving these vehicles from the first rung receivers at Sambhal. He had not even seen most of them in person but developed a high level of criminal trust and was operating through social media apps,” said the Special CP.

He said that the modus operandi of the gang was to first identify vehicles of a particular make and colour.

On receiving a demand for a vehicle of a specific make and model, they used to recce in the Delhi/NCR area and identify their targets. 

“During the night hours, they reached the selected targets and committed the crime,” said the officer. 

“They either used a specially designed screwdriver to break open the lock or they used a software tab (palmtop) to prepare a duplicate key of the car. After that, they used master keys to start the car and drive away within seconds with the stolen car. Then they parked the stolen vehicle at pre-selected places (to check whether any GPS was present in the car or not),” said the officer. 

Thereafter, the vehicles were delivered to the drivers of the first receivers at the places already informed to the car-lifters. The fake registration certificates were either prepared by the first receivers or by the mediators.

 “Asif along with other associates named Idrish, Dildar and Yashir stole the cars from Delhi/NCR area and delivered these stolen vehicles to Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh. After that, Asif delivered the same stolen cars to Tammang, Barman, Nanu a.k.a Rohit Ali and Lakhan in the North East area,” said the officer. 

“Sablu gave him Rs 25,000 on each delivery. Further, they sold the car at a very high price between Rs 4-Rs 8 lakhs as per demand. The end user got the car for between Rs 8 to Rs 12 lakhs,” the officer added.