The Delhi police have busted a gang of auto-lifters that allegedly used state-of-the-art gadgets to steal luxury cars after receiving “orders” from buyers of stolen property. After four members of the alleged gang were arrested, the police purportedly seized 13 luxury cars from them. The police said that it was through YouTube videos that they learnt to breach the security systems of the cars.
Inter-State gang
Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East) Romil Baaniya said the arrested persons — Aamir, Safruddin, Sageer and Shoib Khan – have confessed that they were involved in around 300 cars thefts reported in Delhi-NCR. All four are residents of western UP and are said to be the active members of inter-state gangster Sagir alias Sata‘s gang.
Orders from customers
Each one of the arrested men “specialised” in breaking the security system of a particular brand of car and would be involved in the theft if the customer wanted to buy a stolen vehicle of that particular brand.
During questioning, the accused purportedly said that once a prospective buyer chooses the model, a member of the gang would select vehicles with matching description. They would click photographs of the target car and send it to gang leader Sagir over Whatsapp. Sagir would then send photos of the targeted cars to the gang member who “specialised” in the concerned brand.
High-tech devices
Then came the gadgetry. According to the police, the gang members used high-tech devices to bypass the Engine Control Module (ECM) of the vehicles and use a GPS detector device to check if the car is GPS-enabled. “They gadgets required to break into the cars were purchased from a popular e commerce website for ₹1 lakh.
Online portals
The accused persons also used Youtube to learn new techniques for stealing the newly-launched luxury cars and also used online shopping portals to purchase chips, duplicate keys, ECM, etc,” said Mr. Baaniya.
On how they were arrested, Mr. Baaniya said the police laid a trap near Meerabai polytechnic college in New Friends Colony area. He said that based on a tip-off about auto-lifters coming for delivery of a stolen car at 5 a.m, the vehicle was intercepted and the four accused were overpowered.
