A 54-year-old man who stole two-wheelers of a specific brand from several places in the city was arrested by the Mylapore police.
The police received a series of complaints, mostly from women motorists whose vehicles were stolen from around the Kapaleeswarar temple. They identified the suspect after scrutinising CCTV footage and launched a search.
On Friday, while sub-inspector Augustin and constable S. Prabu were on duty near Nageshwara Rao Park, they found a man pushing a scooter. When they tried to approach him, he took to his heels. After a brief chase, he was nabbed. The suspect identified himself as Hari alias Hariharan, 54, of Perungalathur. The school drop-out was working in a tea-stall. From 2015, he began stealing gearless scooters. He used duplicate keys to open the lock of vehicles and would then park them in parking lots in railway stations and other places. He sold off stolen vehicles using documents left by the motorists and used to get around ₹10,000 for each vehicle. Hari was arrested by other police stations earlier for the same offence.
The Mylapore police recovered 19 scooters of the same brand from him.