Hyderabad: A man was arrested by Cyberabad police on Sunday for stealing vehicles from self-driving agencies and traveling to different places with different false identities.
The man identified as Gudati Mahesh Nuthan Kumar, the ‘hi-tech thief’, rode a Royal Enfield bicycle he stole from Bengaluru, from Hyderabad to Ladakh and back to Hyderabad, which is more than 5,000 km along traveled the road with five other friends. Police found Mahesh a traveling companion and liked to be on the move. He also planned to start his own travel agency.
Mahesh, an engineering student in the West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, has loved traveling since childhood. After completing the graduation ceremony, he made friends who belonged to different states and traveled with them to their residents. He thought it would be easier if he had a vehicle.
But he had different plans! He stole identity cards and documents from his friends’ private residences and used them to rent cars from self-driving agencies. Using identity cards stolen from a Panjagutta residence, he rents a Royal Enfield bicycle from Bengaluru and rides it to Vizag. He then returned to Hyderabad and went on an expedition to Ladakh for 28 days with five other friends.
According to police, he would claim that during the rental of vehicles he would undertake a trip from the State and submit the stolen identity cards. After crossing the state border, he took the GPS device out of the vehicle and threw it into some trucks that had traveled long distances. If he did not return within the allotted time, the agency would have tried to contact him, but his phone was turned off. They will then locate the GPS, just to get it in a truck. In all his crimes he used the same technique.
Police recovered six cars and a Rs 70 lakh bicycle he had stolen from various self-governing agencies in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra and West Bengal in 2020.
Source: The Siasat Daily