Delhi Police on Monday said they arrested five members of a gang allegedly involved in stealing nearly Rs 15 lakh from a ATM at Sarai Rohilla police station area.

Police said they also managed to recover Rs.14.90 lakhs taken away by the criminals. Unlike most ATM thieves who tamper with CCTV cameras, take away digital video recorders, or displace the ATM machines, the members of Azad’s gang travelled in stolen SUVs having fake number plates and only masked themselves while committing the thefts, said deputy commissioner of police (north) Sagar Singh Kalsi.

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Police said they recovered 17 number plates of different vehicles, 15 screwdrivers, one toolbox, 10 pliers, one wire cutter and a hammer from the accused, who were identified as Farman (27), a resident of Bulandshahar in Uttar Pradesh, Mohammad Dara (58) from Karawal Nagar, and Wasim (32) from Nand Nagri, and Imran (25) and Arman (20) from Usmanpur.

Further, according to DCP North, July 2, Sarvesh Kumar Yadav, the second branch manager of Punjab National Bank, Shahjada Bagh Branch, Sarai Rohilla, filed a complaint.
Following the complaint, a case was registered and an investigation launched. Police team members inspected the spot and checked the CCTV footage from near the crime scene. The footage helped establish that the accused had come in a grey or black cRETA to commit the crime.
However, from the footage neither the car’s registration number nor the faces of the accused were clearly visible. However, a scanning of the CCTV footage nearby led the police to Inder Lok Metro Station.

In one of the cameras, the car’s registration number was visible, and, on while searching for the registered owner of the car on the relevant portal, the number was found to be of a Brezza SUV.

Police said it was, thus, apparent that the Creta car had a fake number plate.
On enquiry from the owner of the Brezza, who the police identified as Sanjeev Kumar Sehrawal, it was revealed that the number plate of his car was stolen in the intervening night of 1 and 2 July and an FIR was also registered at Adrash Nagar police station.
The officers said that they started scanning CCTV cameras of Majlis Park from where the Brezza was stolen. They found that the suspects had come in the Creta. It turned out that the Creta was also stolen from the Rohini area on June 29.

The CCTV footage of that area were scanned and the investigators found that the thieves had arrived in a red Swift, but it had the registration number plate of a Baleno.
“Our team members then focused on the routes taken by the Swift. We eventually traced its original registration and found that it was registered in the name of one Farman, a resident of Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh. Farman was interrogated and confessed to the crime. His interrogation led to the arrest of four other accused and the recovery of Rs14.90 lakh, last week. They revealed that that they had committed a similar ATM theft at Ranjeet Nagar on July 2,” added Kalsi.

“The gang has a unique modus operandi. Before stealing cars, they used to dismantle the security system installed in automatic and push-start luxury cars. The gang members identified a car and took photographs of the hologram pasted on its rear windscreens that contained unique code of the security system installed in the vehicle. The photograph was sent to the gang’s technical expert based in Dubai. The expert unlocked the security system, generated a new code and sent it back. The gang members would break the window glass of the car and use a machine having the new security code to start the vehicle and make their escape,” the DCP said.

“We recovered 17 number plates of different vehicles, 15 screwdrivers, one toolbox, 10 pliers, one wire cutter and a hammer from the arrested persons,” the officer added.