Nagpur: Navi Mumbai Crime Branch has arrested nine accused including three officials attached to Amravati Regional Transport Office (RTO) and nine agents in an inter-state gang that re-registered stolen goods carrier trucks and sold it further. Operational since around five years, the accused used several modus to get hold of trucks that could be sent to a different states for re-registration after changing the chassis number and engine number of the vehicles. Some Nagpur Rural RTO officials are also under scanner.
The arrested Amravati RTO officials are Assistant Motor Vehicle Inspector Bhagyashree Patil (43), Inspector Ganesh Varute (35) and Assistant RTO Sidharth Vijay Singh Thoke (35).
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The main accused in the gang is Javed Abdullah Shaikh alias Maniar, 49, who had several agents under him at various places in Maharashtra and other states wherein the re-registration happened at large numbers.
According to a media report, one of the ways was to purchase trucks from first owners who were unable to pay the vehicle loan by making a small amount of down payment and then entering into an agreement with him saying that all the further installments of the vehicle loan would be paid by him. Maniar used to pay the installments for a few months and then would claim that the truck got stolen and report it to the police.
The chassis number and engine number of that truck is changed and then sent to states like Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland. There, the re-registration of the vehicles happens with the help of fake documents. The vehicle there is re-registered as a new vehicle manufactured the same year. The re-registered vehicle is then sent to Maharashtra wherein the vehicle is sold to another person, the report said.
When a vehicle is brought to a different state, the owner must apply for the Assignment of New Registration Mark (RMA). The vehicle thus brought to Maharashtra, gets an RMA from various RTO in Maharashtra and then those trucks are sold to another person as a second-hand truck.
The main accused Maniar always gave one mobile number itself during the re-registration of the vehicles for OTP and for the RC book of the vehicle. The officials of Amravati RTO office arrested, did not verify the documents of the vehicle that had come to them and did not physically verify the chassis and engine number. If they had checked the vehicle physically, they would have got to know that the original engine and chassis number has been fiddled with, the report added.
The gang was traced based on a tip off of an informer following which the police intercepted a few trucks in Navi Mumbai and found that the chassis and engine number on those trucks were never manufactured by the company.
The first arrest of one of the agents who worked for the main accused Maniar was made on March 16. He was identified as Mohammad Aslam Baba Shaikh, 49, a resident of Buldhana followed by the arrests of his accomplices — Shivaji Asaram Giri, 48, from Sambhaji Nagar, Amit shankatha Singh alias Monu Rajput, 33, from Surat, then the main accused Maniar, Shaikh Rafeeq Shaikh Dilawar Mansuri alias Rafeeq Mamu, 42, from Amravati and Varun Ramesh Jibhekar alias Seel, 41, from Nagpur.
The police seized a total of 29 trucks worth Rs 5.50 crore. According to the police, the main accused Maniar was wanted by the police for the last seven years in different states as well.
A case has been registered under Sections 420, 465, 467, 468, 479, 413,201, 401,120 (B) of the IPC.
