E-Paper
56-year-old among 3 of family held for stealing 25 cars in 12 months in Delhi
Police said the 56-year-old did not trust other thieves, fearing they would rat him out, so he started a gang within his family
A 56-year-old man, his son and his son-in-law have been arrested by the Delhi Police for allegedly running an auto-lifting gang and stealing more than 25 cars over the past 10-12 months. Police said the 56-year-old did not trust other thieves, fearing they would rat him out, so he started a gang within his family.
Investigators said the accused – Raman Singh (56), his son Sagar Singh (31) and his son-in-law Neeraj Singh (35) – mainly targeted cars parked outside gyms in west Delhi and Dwarka areas.
DCP (Dwarka) Ankit Singh said his staff was recently probing auto thefts in the area and found that the accused mainly operated in morning hours and outside parks and gyms.
“We also found that the accused hardly took a few seconds to break into a car and would steal it within five to seven minutes. We found evidence that the accused used equipment to disable the car alarm. More than 200 CCTVs were checked while we were investigating these thefts and found a common Wagon R car in the footage” said Singh.
The investigators started looking for the Wagon R car and also searched other footage to identify the accused. The team received a tip from an informer that a stolen car - white colour Wagon R is near Uttam Nagar. On May 28, a team was sent and two of the accused, Raman and his son Sagar, were held from the car. They were caught with two other fake number plates, said the police.
“The accused were held with car scanners, hand clips with wire, key connectors, hammers, wire cutters, pliers and other tools. During interrogation, we found they worked with another family member” said Singh.
Police said Neeraj was arrested from Goyla Dairy on Wednesday. During further probe, police said they found Raman is involved in 18 car thefts while Sagar is involved in 12 cases.
“A Swift car was also recovered from Dwarka. It was stolen this year from Tilak Nagar. We also found another car, a Maruti Brezza, which was stolen from Dwarka. The accused revealed they would sell the cars to dealers in Meerut. We found they stole 20-25 cars in the last 10 months. They were targeting Hyundai Creta, Fortuner, Swift and Maruti Brezza, which were found near parks as well as gyms.” Added the DCP.
The trio allegedly used to target the onboard diagnostic (OBD) port, which authorises car technicians to access the vehicle’s mainframe. Police said they had scanners and hand tools to break into the security system and steal the car
