Man held for duping cops to claim seized bike in Andheri

The accused, identified as Mohammad Asif Shafi Mansuri, was traced through a UPI transaction he made to pay a fine in order to claim a seized bike belonging to someone else, police officers said

Mumbai: The DN Nagar police have arrested a habitual offender who allegedly duped officers from the traffic department in Andheri West into releasing bikes seized for various violations.

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The accused, identified as Mohammad Asif Shafi Mansuri, was traced through a UPI transaction he made to pay a fine in order to claim a seized bike belonging to someone else, police officers said. Asif has several similar cases pending against him, they added.

The case against Asif was registered based on a complaint filed by Altab Karim, a police constable in the DN Nagar traffic department. On August 10, constable Santosh Kamble had stopped a rider, Anas Khan, whose two-wheeler did not have a number plate. Khan told police the bike was registered in his wife Shabina’s name and that the documents were at home. The police seized the vehicle and told him to return with the papers.

Four days later, on the evening of August 14, two men approached the DN Nagar traffic police, claiming to be Khan’s relatives. They submitted what they said was the bike’s number plate to Karim and paid two fines of ₹1,000 each via UPI. Karim then handed over the confiscated bike to them.

On August 18, however, Anas Khan approached the police and presented the bike’s actual documents and number plate. Karim then told him that his relatives had already paid the fines and taken the bike. After examining CCTV footage, Anas told the police that the men who took his bike were not his relatives.

An FIR was then registered against the two unidentified men at the DN Nagar police station. During the investigation, police tracked the QR code used for the UPI transaction, which led them to Asif, who was arrested on Sunday.

During interrogation, Asif allegedly confessed to the fraud and revealed that he had carried out the operation with the help of two accomplices. His modus operandi, officers said, involved conducting a recce of two-wheelers seized by the transport department, preparing fake documents of the vehicles, posing as relatives of the bike’s owners to pay fines and then taking possession of the vehicles.

“We have arrested Asif and are tracing his accomplices who had actually gone to collect the bike,” said a police officer from DN Nagar police station.