Gang stole 500 cars from Delhi-NCR, sold them in naxal-hit areas

New Delhi, Dec 31 : The Delhi police has busted a syndicate involved in the theft and sale of more than 500 high end luxury cars from Delhi and NCR. Three key members of the syndicate have been arrested.
The kingpin Waseem has been operating in Delhi and NCR, Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Raipur (Chhattisgarh) for the last five years and has been involved in the theft of more than 500 cars.
Fifteen luxury stolen vehicles such as Fortuner, Creta, Brezza, Skoda, Ertiga, with one Royal Enfield motorcycle have been recovered. The gang sold the vehicles in the naxal-hit areas to make it difficult for them to be recovered.
It was revealed that Waseem and his close associate Riyaz, hailing from Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, had formed a gang of auto-lifters about 5-6 years back. Their modus operandi included the purchase of damaged cars’ scrap from the portals of different insurance companies and websites along with the original documents.
Thereafter, they stole cars of the same make, model and colour from Delhi/NCR and transferred the details of the scrapped cars to the stolen cars by tampering with the engine and chassis numbers.
“These stolen cars would be sold later in small towns like Jaunpur, Raipur etc., through car dealers. They’d change the details so skilfully that even the transport authorities and finance companies could not detect the tampering. The gang then established its base in the naxal-hit areas for selling the stolen vehicles to make it difficult for such vehicles to be recovered,” said Deepak Yadav, DCP East Delhi.