Autolifters' gang busted, 9 nabbed

Nine suspected autolifters, including a civil engineer, who used high-end diagnostic kits and imported key-making machines to break open cars and steal them, have been arrested, the police said today.
Police claimed to have recovered seven stolen cars and 177 smart keys used by the accused to disable a car's electronic systems. With their arrest, 16 cases of motor vehicle thefts were worked out, they added.
On August 20, the police nabbed two men Neeraj Tiwari (29) and Jitender Kumar (37) while they were coming from Mahipalpur and travelling towards Gurgaon to meet an associate, the police said.
They were arrested from near Rajokri flyover and six high-end sensor-based car keys were recovered from their possession.

The Honda City car in which they were travelling was found to be stolen from south Delhi's Malviya Nagar.
Following their arrest, they led the police to their Gurgaon-based associate Naresh Chawla (49), they added.

During interrogation, it was found that the gang was headed by one Subhash Tiwari (55), a resident of Deoria in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
He was nabbed from Deoria and a Honda Accord car and several smart keys were recovered from his possession, the police said.
Subsequently, five more men, Nasir (26), Shaukat Ali (52), Mohsin (25), Wasim (27) and Aashim (27) were arrested, they added. Three cars, along with 45 rice bags allegedly burgled from east Delhi's Ghazipur were seized from them.

During interrogation, Jitender Kumar, revealed that he worked with a cab aggregator firm as a driver.
Under the cover of a cab driver, he used to carry out recce of places where high-end luxury cars were usually parked while transporting commuters, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Ishwar Singh.
He used to pass on information to Neeraj Tiwari who would, thereafter, study the make and model of the target vehicle and approach technical expert Naresh Chawla.
The diagnostic kits were used to disable the car's electronic security system. The kits comprised sensor-based, pre-programmed smart keys which meant that the operation was carried out silently, said the officer.

The kit cost more than Rs five lakh and is used by authorised company-owned or company-operated service stations for diagnosing the faults in expensive cars and SUVs, said the DCP.
The smart keys recovered from the accused are prepared using advanced and expensive key-making machine which can prepare clone keys for almost any make of vehicle currently available in the Indian market, he added.
Since the stolen vehicles were to be driven long distances, Kumar and others had prepared fake ID cards showing them to be employees of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and these were used to hoodwink any check-post that might be encountered, said the officer.

Subhash Tiwari used his network in the northeast to dispose off the vehicles for handsome prices.
Tiwari, the mastermind of the gang, has a civil engineering degree, from Gorakhpur, UP.