Bengaluru, Feb 1 The Bengaluru police with the help of Andhra Pradesh transport department busted notorious inter-state car theft racket and arrested seven-members of this gang and seized 48 high-end cars valued at about Rs 4 crore from them, Deputy Commissioner of police (East Division) S. D. Sharanappa said here on Monday.
The notorious gang comprises of 10 members and three of them are still on the run.
According to the police , except for J. Riyaz all other accused hailed from Hindupur, Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh.
The police said in its statement that the arrested have been identified as J. Riyaz (Bengaluru), Sheik Mukatayar, Y. vinod, Ramesh Naidu, Narasimha Reddy, T. Prabhakar and Dhakli Naresh.
The other three associates of the gang Inayat, Salim, Suhel and Jabi are still at large, the statement further stated.
The DCP told reporters that the modus operandi of this gang was to identify a car owner who failed to repay their EMIs on time.
"Their primary target used to be those who could not afford to pay their EMIs in time and pay them the initial amount towards advance payment. The accused used to procure original documents of the vehicle after assuring the original vehicle owners that they would continue to repay 'their' installments on time," the DCP explained.
After obtaining original papers, the gang used to get this vehicles registered in Andhra Pradesh as a new car at Hindupur Regional Transport Officer's (RTO) office through Sheikh Muktayar and his associates including Vinod, Ramesh Naidu, T. Prabhakar, Chakli Naresh and others who were working as clerks and agents.
However, this first comes to the notice of Anantapur Deputy Transport Commissioner N. Sivaram Prasad, after getting complaints about registration of Karnataka vehicles without NOC in AP39 RTO, he initiates internal inquiry and finds several anomalies by his own subordinates.
"Based on his preliminary inquiry and investigations, he suspends erring RTOs and has files complaint in this regard with the local police too. The case then gets referred to Bengaluru East division and investigations lead to 52 luxurious cars like Toyota Innovas being stolen by this gang and sold in Andhra Pradesh, Of these 52 cars, we have seized 48 vehicles from this gang," the police officer explained.
The police has registered a case and is investigating, while elated over the seizure the Bengaluru police commissioner Kamal Pant has also announced the cash prize in appreciation to K. G. Halli police for cracking the case.
( With inputs from IANS )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor