Gang held for stealing cars, selling them as ‘used cars’

MUMBAI: Be careful if you are thinking of buying a second-hand car, chances are that you may get one for a huge discount and not realize even after months that it was stolen. City crime branch have arrested a gang of four which would steal vehicles, switch the chassis and engine numbers with vehicles meant for scrap and sell them to unsuspecting buyers as ‘used cars’.
Unit 8 of the crime branch arrested four persons and seized 15 vehicles which include Pajero, Innova, Scorpio and Hyundai Verna. Police identified the four accused as Riyaz Ahmed, Zakir Shaikh, Faraz Siddiqui and Murlidhar alias Murli Panikar, but more arrests are likely in the inter-state racket.
“Based on a tip-off, we kept watch and recently caught two people tampering with the chassis of a Verna. When questioned, they spilled the beans on their accomplices,’’ said Deepak Patangre, senior inspector.
Further investigations led police to recover 14 more vehicles from the gang. “Riyaz Ahmed, the gang leader, runs a small garage at CST. His accomplices would steal vehicles according to requirement and change their chassis and engine numbers,’’ said inspector Sunil Mane. The gang would buy vehicles involved in accidents from insurance companies and use their registration documents to sell the stolen vehicles. Inspector Sudhir Dalvi said the buyers would not even know that they had bought a stolen vehicle.
Police said the gang operated not only in Mumbai and Thane, but also in Hyderabad, Hubli and Uttar Pradesh. “We are looking for more than a dozen people involved in the racket,” said Dhananjay Kamlakar, deputy commissioner of police.