Three Chennai boys who stole 13 bikes in one week run out of luck

CHENNAI: Three juveniles who had stolen 13 bikes over the past few weeks ran out of luck on Tuesday.
The gang was nabbed based on a complaint from a man named Hari Narayanan, 43, of Kamarajar Nagar 4th street, Choolaimedu. He had parked his bike outside his house last Saturday. When he woke up in the morning, he found it missing. He subsequently lodged a complaint with the Choolaimedu police.
The gang members were intercepted during a vehicle check. The trio abandoned the bike and tried to escape before police nabbed them.
During verification, they could not produce the ownership papers of the bike. During interrogation, the youngsters confessed that they had indeed stolen the bike using duplicate keys.
The three juveniles, in their teens, were addicted to marijuana and used to steal bikes using duplicate keys whenever they ran out of money, police said. The motorcycles recovered from them were stolen from different parts of the city.
During interrogation, they said they stole two-wheelers from Choolaimedu and surrounding areas and sell them using forged documents after changing their number plates with the help of a few agents. Explaining their modus operandi, a police officer said the accused used to first unlock bikes parked at different locations and then dump them at busy areas. They mostly chose residential localities, police said.
"We suspect them to have been hired by habitual offenders to steal bikes. They would be paid a sum anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 per bike. Not many suspected them as they resembled school-going teenagers," said an investigating officer.
The juveniles have criminal antecedents, but were picked up last year and kept in observation home.
Police have seized six bikes from them.