The racket allegedly involved in the illegal sale of vehicles taken on rent might have cheated more people, the police suspect.
The three-member gang was busted by the Kalamassery police when they were intercepted in a sedan, which they had similarly procured on rent, during a combing operation on Wednesday.
The arrested are Abdul Najeeb, 46, from Malappuram and Jinu John Daniel, 36, and Sajad, 22, from Kayamkulam.
“We have registered six cases for six missing vehicles they had procured and either illegally sold or pledged on fabricated registration documents. Those vehicles have been traced to various parts of Tamil Nadu. Now, we will have to procure the custody of the accused and take them to Tamil Nadu for recovering the vehicles,” said P.R. Santhosh, Station House Officer, Kalamassery.
He expects more such cases against the gang from more police stations in the days to come. The police also hope to get more details about their operations during custodial interrogation.
The police have registered six cases invoking IPC Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention). Besides, four other cases have been registered for selling fake gold ornaments supplied by a Kondotty resident, the hunt for whom is on.
The accused adopted a modus operandi by which Abdul Najeeb used to take vehicles on rent from rent-a-cab firms and hand them over to Jinu. He then sold them on forged registration documents allegedly with the help of one Sivasankara Pillai who once usurped a vehicle belonging to the former when he used to run a rent-a-cab firm on his own.
Jinu, a mechanical engineering graduate, fitted the vehicles with Global Positioning System before selling them. The third accused, Sajad, sold them in Tamil Nadu for a commission. The same vehicles were then tracked down by the accused using GPS, and Sajad stole them with the help of duplicate keys and brought them back before returning it to the firm concerned.
