Rajendranagar cops bust auto theft racket, seize 15 cars worth Rs. 2.30cr

Hyderabad: The special operation team (SOT), Shamshabad zone, along with the Rajendranagar police busted an interstate car theft racket and recovered 15 stolen cars all worth Rs. 2.30 crores. They arrested three members of the gang. The apprehended persons have been identified as Mohammed Azhar Javeed (35), Mohammed Zaheer (21), and Mohammed Aman Khan (23). Another accused, Ghulam Nabi, is absconding.

The seized vehicles included two Toyota/Innova Crysta, four Hyundai/Creta, seven Maruthi Suzuki/Baleno, and two Maruthi Suzuki/Brezza. In 2020, Mohammed Azhar Javeed returned to Hyderabad from Qatar, where he was working since 2016, and started looking for jobs. He saw an ad on OLX posted by Ghulam Nabi who was selling a car.

Javeed contacted Ghulam and went to meet him in Delhi. The latter sold Javeed an Innova for Rs. 4 lakhs and handed over the car's documents. He brought the vehicle to Hyderabad, transferred the vehicle number, and sold it for Rs. 6.70 lakhs. He then contacted Ghulam for more cars and was offered a Toyota Fortuner for a low price. This made Javeed suspicious as Fortuner is a costly vehicle. However, Ghulam convinced him and asked only Rs. 2 lakhs to deliver the vehicle. The remaining amount was to be paid after getting an NOC and other documents from the RTO.

Subsequently, Javeed accepted the offer and brought the vehicle to Hyderabad by paying Rs. 2 lakhs. But Ghulam did not hand over the vehicle's documents and stopped responding to Javeed's phone calls. Later, Ghulam confessed that he had sold a stolen vehicle with fake documents. Javeed and his friends Mohammed Zaheer and Mohammed Aman Khan hatched a plan to collude with Ghulam and sell stolen vehicles.

Ghulam handed over stolen vehicles to the three men who brought them to Hyderabad by preparing fake documents. In this way, Ghulam sold 14 vehicles. The gang used to sell the stolen vehicles to people by telling them they would receive the original documents after getting an NOC from the state and providing photocopies of the documents. Four months ago, the three men were bringing two vehicles from Delhi to Hyderabad when they were stopped by the police on the outskirts of Nagpur. They left the vehicles, escaped, and came to Hyderabad. They had been absconding since then.

On 28 July, after receiving information, the joint team of SOT Shamshabad zone and the Rajendranagar police intercepted Javeed, Zaheer, and Aman Khan at Himayathsagar road under the limits of Rajendranagar police station.