Delhi Police bust ‘Highway Snatchers’ gang that targeted over 100 in 6 months

The gang used to snatch cellphones from people’s shirt pockets while on the Outer Ring Road and flee; 17 phones seized from the storage compartment of their scooter.

When three men riding a scooter took a sudden U-turn on spotting a police picket in west Delhi’s Mayapuri on Saturday evening, the policemen initially suspected that the trio wanted to avoid a heavy penalty for riding triple.

Three men, part of a gang of snatchers, were arrested by Delhi Police on October 5 . (Sourced)

Over the next few minutes, however, the team realised that they had stumbled upon a gang of snatchers who had allegedly targeted more than 100 people in the last six months.

Seventeen snatched mobile phones stuffed in a bag hidden in the scooter’s storage compartment stood testimony to their criminal past.

By Sunday morning, the snatchers turned out to be a gang that employed a unique and dangerous modus operandi and whose network spread to as far as Bangladesh. Among criminals, this gang had gained notoriety as the “Highway Snatchers”.

“Every morning, two members of this gang would leave their homes in Jahangirpuri on a stolen Yamaha R15 motorcycle. Riding on the Outer Ring Road, they would look out for motorcycle riders who keep their mobile phones in their shirt pockets for easy access,” said an officer who is not authorised to speak to the media.

“They would then ride parallel to the motorcyclist for a while before snatching their phone and speeding away. Their sports motorcycle ensured no one stood a chance at catching them. On the Outer Ring road, they were active in places such as Jahangirpuri, Burari, Kashmere Gate, Adarsh Nagar, Bhalswa Nagar,” the officer said.

On days when the Outer Ring Road would be heavy with traffic, they would allegedly use a stolen scooter to target phone users in the narrower streets of residential neighbourhoods in Delhi. “They found scooters to be easier to handle in the residential neighbourhoods,” said the officer.

Deepak Purohit, deputy commissioner of police (west district), said that the gang was more cautious while disposing the stolen mobile phones. “They would sell the stolen phones in West Bengal from where their contacts would further sell them in Bangladesh,” said Purohit.

The other investigator said that selling the stolen phones in Delhi was risky since they stood the chance of being traced. “So, once they had collected enough snatched phones, they would visit Siliguri in West Bengal and sell the phones there from where they would further be sold to end-users in Bangladesh, making it impossible for us to recover the phones,” said the investigator.

The breakthrough for the police came around 5 pm on Saturday when a picket by a “special anti-snatching unit” of Mayapuri police station was set up near Mayapuri Depot. “The policemen saw three men on a scooter riding towards them. Before they could signal them to stop, the trio took a U-turn and tried to escape,” said the officer involved in the operation.

But the police team had prepared a backup for such situations.

“We not only had a motorcycle-borne police team at the picket, we also had one more team on motorcycles ready in case any suspects took a U-turn. Within seconds, the suspects found themselves sandwiched between two police motorcycles. They tried to run on foot, but were chased and caught,” said the officer.

When the police team checked the storage compartment of the scooter, they found 17 phones kept in a bag. “All the phones were found to be switched off. The suspects couldn’t produce the bills of any of them,” said the officer, adding that the scooter too was found to be a stolen one.

By Sunday morning, the police had recovered four more phones and three more stolen motorcycles.

DCP Purohit identified the arrested men as 25-year-old Raja, Ashu, 22, and Sheikh Nasir, 22-year-old Raja, who goes by a single name, is the alleged kingpin of the gang that has been into snatching for at least last six months, said the officer. “Raja was released on bail in another snatching case just a month ago,” said the DCP.

The police have so far linked 13 of the 21 recovered phones using their IMEI numbers and efforts are on to identify the owners of the remaining phones. “All these phones were set to be sent to Bengal in the coming days,” said police.