The duo had converted their house into a virtual RTO office by 'obtaining' the rubber stamps of transport officers of Bangalore and Mysore. They also had the required infrastructure like computer, printer and other machines, to 'issue' Registration Certifications, insurance papers. They would also arrange loans to the customers through finance companies.
Abbas Ali and Aboobaker Sadik
The duo, however, ran out of luck, and have now been lodged in police custody after being arrested in Bellary. The racket came to light with the sale of a Toyota Innova car to a certain Mahantesh Shettar, a contractor in Bagalkot. On Saturday, Shettar had been to the authorized showroom of Toyota Motors in Raipur with his vehicle for servicing. When the staff their checked the registration number, they found out that the one mentioned on the plate was wrong. Upon verification, it was found out that the original number of the vehicle was different and it belonged to a person called Shaun Kamal Shethi in Kerala.
Mahantesh had purchased the vehicle from Abbas Ali on April 26 by paying Rs. 3.15 lakh. The RC book that was given to Mahantesh had entries of Mysore and Bangalore as first and second party. Mahantesh filed a case against Ali in Keshavpur station. During the investigation, the police stumbled upon the inter-state racket and apprehended both Aboobaker Sadik and Abbas Ali, revealed K. Ramachandra Rao, the police commissioner of Hubli-Dharwad police, during a press conference in Hubli on Monday.
“Both Sadik and Ali would purchase vehicles of dubious background at a cheap price and then sell it to unsuspecting customers after creating bogus documents. We have recovered Scorpio, Skoda, Bolero, Tata Safari, Toyota Innova and Indica car from them. We are investigating if these are stolen cars. The cars have registration numbers bearing Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka numbers,” he said.
Mr. Rao also revealed that the duo had managed to secure loans from Axis Bank, IKF Finance, Sriram Finance, Hinduja Leyland Finance and other institutions for the vehicles. They would then create bogus documents for the same vehicles and sell it at a higher price. The pair also managed to get smart cards by submitting forged documents. “We have formed a special team to crack the network,” he said.
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