105 stolen vehicles worth ₹3.4cr seized in Thane, 9 arrested
THANE: The city police have arrested nine members of a gang who used to steal vehicles in and around Maharashtra, and sell it at a higher price using forged documents. Cops have so far seized 105 vehicles, worth ₹3.4 crore, from the accused.
Police also suspect more people are involved in the racket. The incident came to light after a vehicle was stolen from Rabodi in December 2018, and a case was registered. The Rabodi police caught the main accused, Sandip Murlidhar Lagu, around two weeks ago. On the basis of information received from him, the cops arrested the other accused in past few days.
“The accused have stolen vehicles from Karnataka, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. The accused used to change the colour and number plates of stolen vehicles. They used to make fake documents and get the vehicles registered at the regional transport office and sell these at a higher price,” said joint commissioner of police, Thane, Madhukar Pandey. He added that the accused have been running the racket for two months. All of them are from Karnataka, and are history-sheeters. A similar case was registered against them in 2014. Apart from Lagu, Sadik Mehboob Khan Mullah, Altab Gokak, Vinit Ratan Madhiwal, Mangilal Shubhamram Jhakad, Ramprasad Ganpatram Inaniiya, Javed alias Bablu Mukhtar Khaan, Altaf Iqbal Quereshi and Mohammed Yusuf Naeem were arrested. They are all aged between 20 and 35 years.
Police have also seized the fake documents the accused used. “They used to spend ₹50,000 to forge documents for RTO registration and modify the stolen vehicles. They used to sell the vehicles for lakhs. We have till now got information about 170 vehicles, of which we have seized 105,” said an officer.