Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Oct 3: The Bagalgunte police at Bengaluru reportedly have cracked a case of theft of cars from Bengaluru and selling them here. It is said that the owner of a garage at Suratkal was the mastermind of this entire operation.

The police have succeeded in arresting three accused and recovering from them nine cars of different brands and models worth about Rs 40 lac. Dileesh (38) and Shaji Keshavan (47) from Kerala, who reportedly used to steal cars from Bengaluru and Ali Ahmed from Suratkal who functioned as the conspirator for these thefts, stand arrested.

Ali Ahmed, who is the main accused in the case, operates a garage at Suratkal. He used to click photographs of cars which used to be referred to his garage for repairs. He would then ask Dilelssh and Shaji to steal similar model cars from Bengaluru. Both these accused used to go to Bengaluru, find out the cars of the model required by them. At night, they either opened the cars with duplicate keys or by using operating programme software or steal the cars. They then took alternative routes by avoiding highway for fear of policemen and reach Suratkal where the cars were delivered to the garage owner. They got about Rs 80,000 to one lac from Ali for each stolen car, it is said.

Ali Ahmed used to tamper with the car numbers, chassis numbers etc and paint the stolen cars. Then he used to sell these cars to others for a higher price, the police stated.