NEW DELHI: A
gang of
vehicle thieves was busted with the arrest of five of its members on Monday.
The gang was led by an engineering student and had managed to steal around 100 vehicles in the past one year. As many as 17 luxury vehicles were found with the gang members.
Joint CP (crime) Alok Kumar said a team led by ACP Jasbir Singh nabbed Sanjeev Kumar (35), Dharmender (28), Harvinder (30), Deepak Rana (30) and Shamsher Singh. Police also found various tools with them that they used to break into vehicles.
Police officers said the first breakthrough in the case came on April 27 when Kumar was arrested in south Delhi’s Sangam Vihar with a stolen Swift Dzire having a fake numberplate. A bag containing engine control modules (ECMs), lock sets and drill machines was found in the car.
On the basis of the information taken out from Kumar, police teams raided the hideout of the gang and arrested Dharmender, Harvinder and Rana. They confessed to stealing more than 100 cars and selling them to dealers in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
A dealer, later identified as Singh, was one of the main buyers of stolen cars in Punjab. It was also found that Singh, who runs a scrap metal business with his father in Hargovind Nagar in Punjab, used to buy ‘total loss’ vehicles from insurance companies. He then took out the ECM device from the vehicle and handed it over to Kumar and his associates. The ECM device was then used to steal a car of the same make.
The vehicle thieves told the police that after breaking the window of the car, they used high-intensity magnets and drills to break the steering lock. One member scanned the car for GPS devices and removed them. An ECM decoder was used to delete the device installed in the car and it was replaced with the stolen ECM. Using a master key, the gang then drove away in the vehicle.
Police said Kumar was the leader of the gang and had been committing such crimes for 10 years now. He had 33 cases registered against him.
Illustration for representational purpose.