India News | Thane Police Bust Vehicle Theft-resale Racket, 3 RTO Officials Among Nine Held
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The police in Maharashtra's Thane city on Thursday claimed to have busted a racket involving theft and resale of vehicles by tampering with their chassis numbers, with the arrest of nine persons including three RTO officials.
Thane, May 2 (PTI) The police in Maharashtra's Thane city on Thursday claimed to have busted a racket involving theft and resale of vehicles by tampering with their chassis numbers, with the arrest of nine persons including three RTO officials.
The police said in a release they had recovered 29 vehicles worth about Rs 5.5 crore that had been stolen and sold.
The city's crime branch launched a probe after getting a tip-off about vehicles stolen from other states being registered in Maharashtra with falsified documents, it said.
Working on several inputs, the police arrested the main accused, Javed Abdulla Sheikh, alias Maniar, from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, the release said.
The accused replaced the chassis and engine numbers of vehicles stolen from other states with fabricated ones with the help of the other accused. The vehicles were then reregistered with Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) in places like Nagpur and Amravati, it said.
An assistant RTO official from Amravati, a motor transport inspector and an assistant motor transport inspector have also been arrested for connivance, the police said.
The RTO officials allegedly approved the registration of vehicles and uploaded the details on their portal, making people believe there was no problem with these stolen vehicles.
The main accused is named in ten similar cases registered in Navi Mumbai, Thane, Mira Bhayander, Dhule and Aurangabad. He is also involved in crimes in UP and Haryana, the police said.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)