Car theft in India is one of the major worries and there are hundreds of vehicles that get lifted every day. However, it is not very often that the stolen vehicles are recovered. Lucknow Police has cracked a case and busted a gang that used to lift automobiles. The police have said that the recoveries made by them are worth Rs 11 crore.
The cops arrested a group of five people on June 21 to recover 50 cars and SUVs. Now, the cops have recovered 60 more vehicles stolen by the same gang to reach the total figure of 62 vehicles. The Lucknow Police claims that this is the biggest bust in the country till now. There are more than 2,000 vehicles that have been stolen by the gang in the past as per the cops.
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To hide the identification of the vehicles, the gang used to steal the registration number of the cars that have been destroyed in natural calamities. After stealing vital information like engine number and chassis number, they used to replace the information of the stolen vehicle. The gang also purchased damaged cars that were involved in road accidents and were declared as “total loss” by the insurance companies. The registration details of these vehicles were then used to replace the details of the stolen vehicles. The vehicles were then sold to unsuspecting customers.
The gang targetted high-value luxury cars like BMW sedans and even high-in-demand cars like Toyota Fortuner and Toyota Innova Crysta. There were many regular mass-segment cars too.
The thieves have been identified and the investigation is underway to catch more members of the auto lifters gang. Joint commissioner of police, crime, Nilabja Choudhury said that one of the accused Vinod Sharma was also a member of Shweta Gupta gang, which is run by an MBA degree holder and ex-bank clerk. The gang members used to visit Bangkok, Thailand and stayed in hotels of kingpin Rizwan. There are a lot of pictures of the gang members holidaying in Thailand.
In many cases, the thieves sell the parts of the vehicles after dismantling it. This is when tracking the stolen vehicles become almost impossible. Many thieves even sell the car after exporting it illegally to the neighbouring countries like Nepal. This is why a GPS-based security device has become a necessity in any car in India. While there are a few cars in the market that now offer a factory-fitted GPS security system, the majority of the vehicles do not get them. A GPS-based device will tell you the real-time location of the car and also allows the owner to turn off the car remotely just by using a mobile phone.
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