Agra: Agra Up Police on Thursday claims to break eight members of the vehicle lifting gang between countries used to steal upscale cars from Agra and sell them in other countries, including Bihar and Northeast.
This year alone, the gang allegedly stole 26 luxury cars, including Fortuner, Creta, Innova Crest, Scorpio worth Rs 5.5 Crore.
The defendant has been identified as Hridesh Bhadauria, a resident of Agra, Suresh from Karoli Rajasthan, Vikram from Haryana’s Jind, Sunil and Vinay from Gwalior Madhya Pradesh, Arindam Bose from Jharkhand and Pradeep Singh from wanting, while one of Shailendra Sikarvar’s gang members is still running away .
The police have recovered two I-20 cars along with 72 kg of marijuana from their ownership.
“They use high-tech electronic devices and a number of duplicate number plates to steal a car,” said ADG (Zona Agra) Rajeev Krishna, added that stolen vehicles sold by them in other states – Punjab, West and Western Bengal – for Rs 2.5-3 Lakh, in accordance with the initial investigation report.
He said that the special investigation team had been formed to investigate this case in detail and explore the level of gang involvement in the theft and their relationship with other countries.
During the interrogation, one of the accused, Hridesh Bhadauria, told the police that Shailendra Sikarvar was an engineer and he trained a gang member to use electronic devices to reprogram the stolen car buttons after entering it.
After stealing a vehicle, the defendant changed their number plate and drove a vehicle through the village to avoid the toll road routes and CCTV cameras.