Police said the mixed dust of the three metals is valued at Rs 3,000 per gram in black markets. Similar thefts have also been reported in Mumbai and Gujarat. The Pune City Police has discovered that the two men arrested last week for allegedly stealing silencers from multi-utility vehicles (MUVs) are involved in nine other such thefts. FIRs in these cases were lodged at the Vimantal, Hadapsar, Saswad, Yerwada and Kondhwa police stations.
According to police, the accused extracted valuable dust of platinum, palladium and rhodium from the catalytic converter of the stolen silencers and sold it to a certain Shahbaz Khan. The police are attempting to trace Khan and arrest him.
A team from Loni Kalbhor police station had arrested the accused, Shivprasad Rokde (21) and Ram Dhole (20), on April 16. Five MUV silencers had been recovered from their possession, police said. This brings the number of such cases the accused are involved in to 14, police said.
Explaining why these specific silencers were stolen, an officer said, “According to the emission norms in the country, all new vehicles should have a catalytic converter in their silencer or emission system. The catalytic converter filters the pollutants that engines produce during combustion. For this purpose, the emission pipes have their inside surface coated in a mixture of platinum, rhodium and palladium.
These metals are present in higher quantities in new vehicles. The reason the silencers of this specific make were targeted is possibly due to higher amounts of some of the metals and comparative ease in detaching the unit from the car.”
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Police said the mixed dust of the three metals is valued at Rs 3,000 per gram in black markets. Similar thefts have also been reported in Mumbai and Gujarat.
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