New Delhi: Police have arrested an organized inter-state auto lift gang involved in stealing luxury cars, manipulating chassis numbers and fraudulently re-registering them using forged documents, officials said on Saturday.
Ten key members of the network were arrested and 31 stolen luxury cars with tampered chassis numbers were recovered from different states, they said.
The case stems from an e-FIR registered on August 5, 2025, at Maurya Enclave police station after a Pitampura resident reported her SUV stolen. The case was later transferred to the Crime Branch, which uncovered a larger network operating in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.
During the investigation, police found that the syndicate not only stole vehicles, but also purchased delinquent cars, giving them new identities by manipulating the chassis and engine numbers. The gang used forged sale certificates, forged registration papers and fabricated bank no-objection certificates to re-register the vehicles, officials said.
“They created a parallel system to convert stolen vehicles into apparently legitimate assets and sold them to unsuspecting buyers,” a senior police officer said.
To investigate the wider conspiracy, a separate case was registered by the Crime Branch in January this year under relevant sections of the BNS.
Police conducted raids across multiple states, leading to the arrest of ten accused, including the alleged leader, Damandeep Singh alias Lucky, who ran a used car dealership in Jalandhar and is believed to have controlled the entire network.
Others arrested include a software engineer-turned-agent, an employee of the Himachal Pradesh registration authority, mechanics skilled in changing body numbers, and middlemen who arranged buyers and transportation.
Investigators said the insiders allegedly abused access to the VAHAN portal using unauthorized credentials obtained through OTP manipulation to process forged registration documents. More than 1,000 vehicles are suspected to have been fraudulently registered by the syndicate.
Police said the gang was operating in a decentralized manner, stealing, re-registering and selling in different states to avoid detection.
Some members also used these vehicles for other criminal activities, including drug smuggling, they added.
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