Lucknow, Aug 31 (IANS): Lucknow police have busted a gang of car thieves and recovered six SUVs and hi-tech tools from their possession.

The gang used to carry out recce of service centres to identify SUVs for theft, prepare keys in connivance of employees and obtain the owners’ address to steal vehicles from their homes.

Police nabbed the accused, Satyam Gupta and Arif Khan, from Gomti Nagar Extension.

Efforts are on to identify the employees of service centres who were hand in glove with the accused.

According to cops, Abu Zakaria of Kaushambhi, the mastermind of the gang who operates the pan-India racket, is still elusive.

Additional DCP, East Zone, Syed Ali Abbas said Satyam and Arif used to identify the model of the car that they had to steal and then they would get the key code by clicking a photo of the key with the help of service centre employees.

“After getting the key code, they would decipher the code on the key to create a duplicate one. In the case of a car having a central locking system, they used a Chinese machine to copy the code and make a duplicate key,” the ADCP said.

“After getting the key, they would obtain phone number of the customer from the service centre and then call him/her to get the address. They would then visit the address to find out if the owner parked the car inside or outside the house. They zeroed in on the cars parked outside and stole it,” the officer said.

“They sold these stolen cars in various parts of India and even in Nepal,” he added. The gang members got 15-20 per cent as commission.