They used high-tech equipment, facebook, and a local garage to steal 500 cars in Delhi NCR.
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00:00How easy is it to steal your car?
00:02And how can you stop it from happening?
00:04Brood spoke to Inspector Abdul Rehman Siddiqui from the Ghaziabad Crime Branch
00:08after his team successfully nabbed a gang
00:11who had been using high-tech equipment to steal more than 500 cars in Delhi NCR.
00:16Facebook played a crucial role in how they operated.
00:20Police said that the gang members made fake IDs,
00:23which they then linked to different phone numbers
00:26to send out messages for buying and selling cars on the social networking site.
00:33After making an agreement with a potential customer,
00:36they would then proceed to steal the car that the customer decided.
00:40It was demand and supply.
00:43The gang would also conduct two or three reiki missions
00:46where they would check where all the CCTV cameras were located
00:49and scope out the area.
00:51After choosing the car to steal and planning their escape,
00:54the interesting part began, which earned them the nickname,
00:57High Tech Thieves.
00:59There was a software which they downloaded on either a laptop or a tablet
01:03and used it to get all the information about the car.
01:06Now this software is rather expensive,
01:08it costs somewhere between 1.5 to 2.5 lakhs
01:11and it is also only sold to garages.
01:14One of the gang members, as we'll later learn,
01:16owned a garage and that gave him access to the required software.
01:21So the thieves went to their target car,
01:23reached under the tyres to yank out the wire that was connected to the alarm system
01:28and then they drilled into the boot of the car to open it.
01:35Once inside, the thieves used a jammer to disable the car's GPS
01:40and turned on the car.
01:47Then they drove the car to a secluded place
01:49where it remained out of sight for 7 to 10 days
01:52and then when they were sure that the coast was clear,
01:55they moved it to their garage.
01:57And then they moved on to their next step,
01:59covering their tracks.
02:07The car, polished and shined,
02:09was finally ready to be delivered to the unsuspecting buyers.
02:12This grand operation went undetected for 4 years.
02:16It was in 2023, after nearly 500 cars stolen,
02:20that the Ghaziabad Crime Branch was able to start putting the pieces together.
02:24They checked CCTV footage,
02:26collected data from nearby telephone towers
02:29and found 25 to 30,000 phone numbers of possible suspects.
02:34After narrowing it down to around 200,
02:37they started manually tracking the hours during which these numbers were active,
02:41how many times they were near the crime scene
02:44and whether or not these numbers had been linked to any other theft.
02:48This particular gang had 9 members.
02:516 of them had been arrested.
02:54Noor Muhammad, alias Rinku, was the leader of the gang.
02:57He has 36 cases against him.
02:59Hakeem used to be a farmer in Baghpat,
03:02but now had 32 cases against him in Delhi.
03:04Mohsin, alias Sonu, worked as a mobile repairman
03:08and was the supplier of the gang.
03:10Shakir was the kabadiwala,
03:12who often removed parts from discarded cars
03:15and replaced them with those from the cars that he stole.
03:17Sunil Kala was an auto driver
03:20and Aas Muhammad was the owner of the garage.
03:23They had been selling cars stolen from Delhi NCR
03:26across different states like Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and Gujarat.
03:31While most of the cars stolen were slightly expensive cars
03:34like a Creta, Seltos or a Fortuner,
03:37they also stole cars like Brezzas and Maruti Swifts.
03:41The police said it really depended on what the buyer was looking for.
03:45But who were these buyers?
03:47Inspector Siddiqui said that a lot of them were actually politicians,
03:51big lawyers and businessmen.
03:53He said that while he wasn't sure if the buyers knew that these cars were stolen,
03:58he did say that they probably knew something wasn't right.
04:01The cops recovered 11 cars from this gang
04:04and later another 8 cars from a different gang.
04:10For this gang, it didn't matter if the car was manual or automatic.
04:14Some cars even came with safety features like a steering lock or a gear lock
04:18but the gang was armed to the teeth with tools to easily override these.
04:23Inspector Siddiqui recommended parking your cars inside garages
04:27or at a safe location which isn't on public roads.