The East Division police on Monday unearthed inter-State racket and arrested a gang of seven who allegedly targeted car owners who had defaulted in paying their EMIs.
The gang would offer to purchase the car and take on the loan. When the owner agreed, they paid a token amount as deposit, took the original papers and the cars with the promise that they would pay the full amount soon. Instead, they took the cars to Andhra Pradesh and got new registration numbers for the vehicles without the mandatory NOC. “The scam was perpetuated with the help of RTO officials in Anantapur, who were registering the vehicles without the required NOC from Karnataka for a commission,” said a police officer.
Using the modus operandi, the accused allegedly cheated many people to the tune of several crores of rupees.
TThe police have recovered 48 cars valued at ₹4 crore from the accused who have been identified as J. Riyaz, 33, from Fraser town, Sheikh Mukhtiyar, 30, from Hindupur, and Y. Vinod Kumar, 32, Ramesh Naidu, 40, Narasimha Reddy, 35, T. Prabhakar, 34, and C. Naresh, 32, from Anantapur. The racket came to light when one of the people they had cheated approached the police. Complainant Noor Ahmed, resident of K.G. Halli, filed a complaint saying that he had been cheated by Riyaz who offered to buy his car and take on the EMI, but instead escaped with it.
Based on the complaint, the police arrested Riyaz from Frazer town, and uncovered the racket.
S.D. Sharanappa, DCP, East, said Riyaz, who worked as a tout, approached car owners who had defaulted EMIs during the lockdown. “He paid part of the amount to car owners promising to clear the loan and escaped with the car and the original documents,” said Mr. Sharanappa.
“The police have brought it to the notice of the Deputy Transport Commissioner of Anantapur, who took a serious note of the matter and suspended the RTO officials involved in the scam,” he added.
