Having given up hopes of ever seeing his stolen SUV, Shalimar Bagh resident Babu (name changed) spotted it on OLX.
Babu was shocked at the sheer audacity of the thief to put an advertisement of a stolen car on OLX. He was certain that the Tata Safari was his because all the details right from the colour to an idol on the dash board matched. He reported the matter to the Anti-Auto Theft Squad of the North-West District and the teams chalked out a strategy to uncover the plot.
A deal was struck with Zaved Ali, who had put up the advertisement, by sending a decoy customer.
“Babu called on the number given on OLX. Zaved asked him to come to Varanasi to finalise the deal. A joint team of Special Staff/NW and PS Shalimar Bagh in the supervision of ACP (Operations) R.K. Ojha was formed and sent along with Babu to Varanasi and Zaved, who admitted to the theft, was held,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (North-West) Vijay Singh.
But when the car was recovered, the numbers on the engine, chassis and registration were found changed. To be doubly sure, the complainant opened the bonnet and found the battery he had got changed just a few months ago. “However, the car started using the key the complainant was carrying with him,” said Mr. Singh.
Modus operandi
The arrest of Zaved led to the arrest of Ishtiyak-Israr gang based in Meerut. According to the police, the gang is given a list of the desired colour and model provided by a potential customer looking for a stolen vehicle. The identification numbers engraved later on these stolen cars are of condemned vehicles auctioned off by insurance companies.
“Zaved Ali revealed that Israr used to steal the cars from Delhi-NCR and would tamper with the engine number and chassis number of the stolen car. In order to make this process further foolproof, they used to look for vehicles which got damaged in accidents and had claimed “total loss”. With the connivance of some local people they used to get the stolen vehicles registered with the registration numbers of the “total loss” vehicles,” said Mr. Singh.
Then these vehicles would be passed off as genuine, renovated vehicles which were once damaged.
Istiyak was recently arrested while he had come to steal a car in the Capital.
