The accused have been identified as Rajkumar Kiran Sana Singh (34), Yash Desai (28), Austin Cardoz (29), Suraj Sharma (35), Ankit Dhoundiyal (37), Reshab Mittal (28), Sajjad Khan (38), Manjeet Singh Gill (35), Amandeep Singh (30), Uttamjeet Singh (37), Anil Kumar (43), Tajinder (37), Rakesh Bali (65) and Ramjeet Singh (28), they said.
According to the police, luxury cars were frequently being targeted by auto lifters in the national capital.
Police conducted multiple raids in Goa, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the last two and half months and recovered 18 cars.
Similarly, raids were conducted in Delhi, Punjab, Chandigarh, Goa and Karnataka and seven vehicles were recovered, PTI quoted special commissioner of police (crime) Ravindra Singh Yadav as saying.
Rajkumar disclosed that he came in contact with Akash, Yash and Austin Cardoz, all residents of Goa, to whom he started delivering the stolen cars and organised the crime syndicate, police said.
Later, the accused disclosed that Tajinder used to steal vehicles with his two associates — Harpreet and Ramjeet Singh — from Delhi.
They further sold the stolen vehicles to different places in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, police said.
Uttamjeet is a mechanic who tampers with the chassis number, engine number and imprints the chassis numbers on different vehicles.
The details of car numbers, chassis numbers and engine numbers were provided by Amandeep as he is a dealer of old cars and details of vehicles were available with him.
They mostly chose registration numbers of total loss/accidental cars.
Thereafter, they prepared the forged registration certificates and sold the vehicles.
Anil used to provide forged number plates with forged high security holograms for stolen vehicles, police said.
The gang first identified vehicles of particular make and colour declared as total loss by insurance companies and purchased the vehicles.
The parts of purchased vehicles were disposed off as scrap, while their documents were retained, police said.
On receiving a demand for a vehicle of specific make and model, the thieves used to carry out a recce in Delhi-NCR and identify their targets and would lift one among them.
The number plate and chassis number of the stolen vehicle were then obliterated and replaced with total loss vehicles purchased by the gang.
This gave a new identity to the stolen vehicles, police added.
With PTI inputs
