Belagavi: A notorious gang involved in changing registration and engine (chassis) numbers of new four-wheelers and heavy vehicles and reselling them was caught by Belagavi police. They swindled banks by securing loans twice for the same vehicle, after creating fake registration papers.
The incident came to light after eight people were caught by District Crime Branch and 19 vehicles, including six tractors, four goods vehicles, three jeeps, were recovered from them. Some of them were adept in changing engine numbers of the vehicles using grinder and other machines.
According to district police Superintendent B.R. Ravikanthe Gowda, the gang changed the chassis numbers so accurately that no RTO official was able to find out when these vehicles were sent for registration for the second time.
The gang used to buy new vehicles from showrooms after securing loans from financial institutions under somebody's name. They then used to change the chassis and registration numbers. The gang then helped the second buyer get loans from various banks.
Apart from settling the down-payment to the banks, the people, who availed loans with the help of gang members, never used to pay anything. Based on credible information, one of police officers from District Crime Branch approached the gang on the pretext of buying a vehicle.
“The officer got the vehicle checked by experts and found that the number has been tampered with,” said Ravikanthe Gowda.
In the last few months, the gang bought several vehicles from various showrooms, cheating banks and RTO officials in the process. The police are trying to ascertain the total number of vehicles the gang bought and later sold in the market.
The arrested have been identified as Vasudev Naik (30), from Gokak, Chandrakant Gadiwaddar (35) from Sankeshwar, Usman Maniyar (29) from Hukkeri, Mallappa alias Ramesh Ganagi (38) from Hulkund, Maheshbabu Gadiwaddar (30), Mahaveer Gadiwaddar (27), Prabhakar Pol (22) and Vinayak Pol (26), all from Raibag. According to the police, three other accused are absconding and a manhunt is on to nab them. Some of the gang members were also experts in tampering official records and effectively used computers to prepare fake registration papers of all the vehicles.
During the raid on their houses, the police recovered several computers, printers, scanners, seals of many government departments, including RTO, and other instruments used by them for the purpose. Two of the vehicles recovered from them were registered in Maharashtra and Kerala.
