Gang stealing silencers from vans busted, 7 held

Vadodara/ Anand: Anand’s local crime branch (LCB) arrested five members of a gang that was curiously involved in the theft of silencers from Maruti Eeco vans.
Just in the last 20 days, the gang members, all hailing from Ahmedabad, stole at least 38 such silencers from various areas of Anand city and rural pockets of the district. The gang cashed in on the price of the dust of the precious metals including platinum, palladium and rhodium that is present in the car’s exhaust system as catalytic converters.
LCB sleuths started their probe on directives of Anand district superintendent of police Ajit Rajian after reports of theft of silencers of Maruti Eeco vans started emerging from separate parts of the city.
The cops started checking CCTV footage of the spots from where the silencers were stolen and noticed the movement of a white coloured SUV in most of the places.
The cops came to know that the SUV was owned by one Aasif alias Rupal Vohra, a resident of Ahmedabad’s Bavla taluka, whose maternal house was located in Khambhat and was earlier involved in thefts of cattle and 20 other criminal offences.
Late on Monday night, the cops received a tip off regarding the movement of the SUV on Borsad – Nisraya Road after which Aasif and his accomplices were nabbed. The other accused include Irfan Vohra, Taufiq Pinjara, Firoz Vohra and Vijay Thakor.
The cops recovered 17 silencers, 15 broken parts of silencers, five mobile phones, apart from the entire kit of removing the silencers from the vehicle. The total seizure was worth Rs 10.76 lakh.
“Maruti Eeco which is a commercial vehicle has very low hanging silencers. The catalytic converters of every vehicle have the presence of precious metals like palladium, titanium and rhodium. The gang used to either remove the metals and fit the silencers to the vehicles again or completely remove the silencers for these metal powder,” said Rajian.
The metal dust was then sold in junk market. Just one gram of palladium powder fetches Rs 3,000.
The metals make the pollutants less harmful. These metal dust/ powder which is sold by such robbers is recycled for use in jewellery, dentistry and electronics, sources said.
The cops have also arrested two native of Bharuch – Sunil Devipujak and Moti Devipujak – to whom the metal dust was sold by the gang.
Rajian said that the police is further interrogating the accused as the total number of thefts can be much more.
The gang has confessed that in many cases it used to simply remove metal dust from the silencers and fix them back in the vehicle. The owner would not even realise about the theft.