Police bust inter-state car theft racket, arrest 7 with stolen cars

The seven arrested include men who stole cars, garage employees who provided the gang with details of cars involved in accidents and the men who forged the documents

Mumbai: An inter-state car theft gang was busted and seven of its members were arrested for allegedly forging documents of damaged cars to sell them in the market.

Police bust inter-state car theft racket, arrest 7 with stolen cars

The seven arrested include men who stole cars, garage employees who provided the gang with details of cars involved in accidents and the men who forged the documents.

The racket was busted by the Goregaon police after a 25-year-old used car dealer from Goregaon, lodged a complaint with the police station on September 2, alleging that someone had misused the registration book and documents of two of his cars because of which e-challans were issued in his name in Pune, even though the cars were in garages in Mumbai for repair works.

According to the statement given by Chandan Tiwari, he had bought two Maruti Brezza cars from an auction held by Future Generali Insurance Company. He bought the first car with registration number MH -05 EA 7787 on December 22, 2021, for ₹4 lakh and gave it for repair to a mechanic in Jogeshwari. Tiwari stated that the car was under repairs and was in the garage at Jogeshwari at the time of registration of the FIR.

Tiwari stated that he bought the second car with registration number MH – 43 BN 7400 for ₹4.21 lakh in July 2022. He gave the second car also for repairs to a mechanic at Veera Desai Road in Andheri and he got the car back after repairs on August 27, 2022.

Tiwari told police officials that when he visited the Mumbai traffic police app, to check if any fines were pending against the previous owners of the cars, he found two e-challan tickets issued by Pune traffic police. One e-challan ticket was issued for the first car, which continues to be under repairs at a garage in Jogeshwari, for parking in a no-parking area in Pune, whereas the second e-challan was issued for the second car for speeding at Navle bridge in Pune on August 3.

Tiwari told police officials that he had given the registration book and documents to Mohammed Asim Mansuri, whom he knew for the last five years, to sell the two cars. Tiwari further said that Mansuri had misused the documents of the cars because of which the e-challans were issued for the cars which were under repairs in garages in Mumbai.

Goregaon police had on September 2 registered an offence under sections 420, 406, 465, 467, 471 and 473 of the Indian Penal Code and a day later had arrested Mansuri.

The officers said they arrested Mansuri on September 3 after which he led them to Husain Khan (39) and Niyaz Ansari (27) - both of whom stole cars and make registration certificate (RC) books and other documents of cars involved in accidents to replace them with cars stolen from different parts of the country.

The police have also arrested the garage employees from Mumbai and other states who used to inform the gang about accident-damaged cars brought to them for repairs.

The police seized five cars from the gang members including Fortuner, Maruti Brezza, Ertiga etc worth at least ₹57 lakh. “More cars are yet to be recovered from the gang,” said Dattatray Thopte, senior police inspector of Goregaon police station.

A few of the gang members involved in the racket have been arrested in Uttar Pradesh and are serving jail terms, Thopte added.