PUNE: The crime branch of the Pimpri Chinchwad police has busted a three-man inter-state gang and recovered stolen cars, SUVs and engines recently. The police arrested the three men, as well as two of their local accomplices.
The recovered loot was worth Rs3.58 crore, police said. The suspects would steal these vehicles from Delhi, Ludhiana, Panchkula, Panipat and nearby areas and sell them as “second-hand” vehicles for Rs3 lakh to Rs20 lakh to unsuspecting buyers in Pune and Pimpri Chinchwad, some of whom had taken out loans.
The police noticed suspicious activity at a garage in Ravet, near Dehu Road. On October 26, a team comprising assistant commissioner of police R R Patil, inspector Uttam Tangade, assistant inspector Ganesh Patil and sub-inspector Kaluram Landge raided the garage and took the suspects into custody.
“The three main suspects are Chanpreet Harvindarpal Singh (43) of Ravet, Manjitsingh Jogindarsingh Marwa
(40) of Walhekarwadi and Deepak Chamanlal Khanna (40) of Delhi. We have also arrested Pratik ‘Nagesh’ Chhagan Deshmukh (28) and Haroon Sharif Shaikh (39), who helped the trio find buyers,” Pimpri Chinchwad police commissioner Krishna Prakash said.
In the garage, the police found a few SUVs bearing Maharashtra number plates, as well as several engines of top-end SUVs. inspector Tangade said they checked the chassis number of these vehicles. “These vehicles were reported stolen in Punjab,” Prakash said, adding that they verified this with the Punjab police.
The vehicles were recovered from the possession of the current owners and said it was impossible for the victims to recover their money in this case.
“We recovered 13 SUVs and cars and 15 engines,” the commissioner said.
“Marwa and Khanna would visit local garages and obtain details of vehicles involved in accidents, which were beyond repair. They would send these details to Singh, who would steal vehicles of a similar make from Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and other areas,” he said.
He said Singh would drive the vehicle to the city, hand it over to Marwa and Khanna near the airport and take a flight back. “Marwa and Khanna would affix local number plates, prepare documents based on the chassis and engine numbers of the scrapped vehicles,” Tangade said.
“After processing the documents with the RTO, the suspects would sell these vehicles,” he said.