Delhi Police bust auto theft racket spanning 5 states; 31 vehicles recovered

Delhi Police has busted an organised inter-state auto-lifting syndicate involved in stealing high-end vehicles, tampering with chassis numbers and fraudulently re-registering them using forged documents, officials said on Saturday.

Ten key members of the racket have been arrested, and 31 stolen luxury vehicles with tampered chassis numbers have been 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 theft of her SUV. The case was later transferred to the the Crime Branch, which uncovered a larger network operating across Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Himachal Pradesh.

During investigation, police found that the syndicate not only stole vehicles but also procured loan-defaulted cars, and gave them new identities by tampering with chassis and engine numbers. The gang allegedly used forged sale certificates (Form-21), fake registration papers, and fabricated bank NOCs to re-register the vehicles, officials said.

“They created a parallel system to convert stolen vehicles into seemingly legitimate assets and sold them to unsuspecting buyers” a senior police officer said.

To probe 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 kingpin, Damandeep Singh alias Lucky (42), who ran a second-hand car dealership in Jalandhar and is believed to have controlled the entire network.

Among others arrested are a software engineer-turned-agent, a clerk at a registering authority in Himachal Pradesh, mechanics skilled in altering chassis numbers, and middlemen who arranged buyers and transport.

Investigators said insiders allegedly misused access to the VAHAN portal using unauthorised credentials obtained through OTP manipulation to process forged registration documents. Over 1,000 vehicles are suspected to have been fraudulently registered by the syndicate.

Police said the gang operated in a decentralised manner, carrying out theft, re-registration, and sale in different states to evade detection.

Some members also used these vehicles for other criminal activities, including narcotics trafficking, they said.

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