· Police suspect a bigger nexus involved

· More facts to be busted with more arrests in few days

· Modus operandi: First steal car keys and later the cars

· Gang divided into several small clusters spread in states

Udaipur police has received substantial success in nabbing three men for their alleged involvement in stealing luxury cars from Udaipur and selling them elsewhere. With this important burst, the police also believe that more shocking revelations would be coming up in a few days.

Three Swift Dzire, one Ritz, one Zen, one Indica and one Swift (hatch back) have been recovered from Dilip Regar alias Pinto, resident of Surajpol; Jai Kishan Mali alias Kishanlal, resident of Dwarkapuri colony, Goverdhan Vilas and Jagdish Sharma, resident of Shyam Nagar, Jaipur.

All cars have been stolen from three prime areas including Alkapuri (Ambamata), Tanga Stand (Surajpol) and Ruchika Garden (near Chandu Caterers).

In an initial interrogation, the accused disclosed their method of executing the theft which is dissimilar to any other case noticed in near past.

They first steal the car keys and closely observe each and every activity of the car owner. Most of the time, the car owner assumes he has lost the keys and gets the other key from home.

Unaware of somebody closely following him, the car owner is stalked and when the car is parked someplace and if the thieves find it to be the appropriate time they cleanly steal the car with the original keys stolen earlier.

Hari Prasad Sharma, Superintendent of Police said that the gang is too big and divided in several sections of people assigned to specific jobs.

According to the Police chief, the key thief handed over keys to car thief and the car thief gives it to the coordinator who later takes it to the car mechanic and finally to the car seller.

The key thieves don’t know where the car is nor does the car thief know the location of his booty.

“Specific pay is allocated for every job, Rs. 4000 for stealing car keys, Rs. 10,000 for stealing the car, Rs. 10,000 for successful coordination and Rs.90-1Lac commission for selling each car”, said the police officer.

According to Surajpol SHO, Sobhag Singh, the suspects also disclosed another tactic of selling the stolen car safely.

After stealing, the car is moved into a garage where a mechanic will dispatch all its parts and fix it in another car.

Mostly they focus on how to alter the chasis number without hassle and they exchange the car chasis number from one to another car, by this the car’s body turns new while its chasis number remain same and it goes for sale into the market.

Disclosing how police finally reached the trio, Sobhag Singh said that following a tip off regarding a stolen car, the three suspects were nabbed.

“We were following one blue Ritz which was said to be the stolen one and luckily we saw three men standing at Jai Kishan’s house. When questioned about the car, their answer raised more doubts following which we detained them in the Police Station and during interrogation, more cases were opened” said Singh.

S.P Hari Prasad Sharma said that it could be an interstate gang connected to the gang exposed in March 2012.

“They might have done dozens of car thefts since Jan 2012, and we also consider them linked to a gang arrested in March this year with 24 vehicles”, said Sharma.

One of the accused, Dilip Regar is frequent in crime as several cases are registered against him at Surajpol Police station. Two more names, Ali and Wasim came up in the questioning and they are said to be closely associated with Dilip.

“We have identified 5-6 people more and expect more cars from them in the coming days”, said S.P Sharma.

The cases of car theft were lodged by three applicants Abhishek Chohan (owner of Swift), Vishal Katara (owner of Ritz) and Kapil Vyas (owner of Dzire).

Reported By: Sohail Khan