B'luru: Police arrest two persons - one for defrauding luxury car owners, another for buying stolen cars

Bengaluru: One person has been arrested on allegations of stealing luxury cars in the guise of facilitating their sale and another has been arrested for buying a stolen car.

Cubbon Park Police arrested Syed Gibran (28) of K G Halli and Parvatham Hemchandra (42) of Hyderabad, Telangana. As many as 12 luxury cars including Mercedes-Benz, Range Rover, Mahindra Thar, and Audi, valued at Rs 8.92 crores were seized from them, police added.

Of the accused, Syed Gibran ran a business selling second-hand cars for the past 5-6 years.

He was arrested based on a complaint by a car owner named Raju, from whom Gibran had gotten a Mercedez car for sale. Gibran had allegedly transferred Rs 18 lakhs to Raju as an advance payment when receiving the original documents and the car. However, even after one month neither did he pay the pending amount nor return the car. When asked to return the car, Gibran allegedly threatened Raju with dire consequences.

Police said that a case has been registered in this matter.

In another case, Parvatham Hemachandra, who bought a stolen Benz car, from Gibran was arrested. On the instructions of Syed Gibran, Kiran and Monish Gajendra had stolen a Benz car. Hemachandra had bought the car at a low price, knowing fully well that it was a stolen car.

Police said Syed Gibran has good connections with finance companies and second-hand car dealers in neighboring states. He used to target persons who had outstanding loans against the cars and brought the cars to Bengaluru along with the original documents in the guise of selling them or renting them out at a great price.

He sold the cars at a low price to buyers who used the car for some time. When these buyers wanted to sell the cars he again acted as a middleman and sold it to others, police said.

Gibran also advised some buyers to use fake number plates, police said, adding that a few such cases have been detected.

Gibran has cheated car owners tom several states including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, and Chattisgarh, police said and added that further investigations are underway.

Part of an organized crime syndicate?

Police suspect there to be an organized crime syndicate behind the luxury car theft.  The accused are likely to be connected with connected to a systematic network, therefore, investigating team has been asked to probe the matter thoroughly, said City Police Commissioner Pratap Reddy.

He said that the accused used to lure luxury car owners by enticing them with very high prices for the vehicles. In this view, car owners are being called for questioning, he added.