Police bare major vehicle racket

Yasaratne GAMAGE and Wijayani EDIRISINGHE

Five persons were arrested for stealing and selling vehicles, on the pretext that as they were renting them. Kurunegala Special Crime Investigation Branch arrested them and found documents and 20 vehicles that were stolen and sold, using fraudulent registration, in Kurunegala and neighbouring ares Tuesday.

The main accused, a resident of Kalutara has gone abroad. Police suspect him to be a member of an underworld gang.

According to police sources an organized gang of about 25 persons had been renting vehicles from rent a car services and prepared fraudulent registration papers for those vehicles. One of the accused, Siddik who is evading police has bought original vehicle registration documents from the Registrar of Motor Vehicle (RMV) at Rs 25,000 each. Police are on the lookout to nab the suspect and RMV officers who are involved in the racket.

Police further reveals that the main accused have been lodged more than 10 complaints at Mirihana police and a number of other complaints in Peliyagoda and Gampaha police stations. Others who are from around the country had their specific role in this fraud.

Some have rented vehicles while others involved in selling them. The gang had rented vehicles from the same sale using different clients to maintain confidentiality.

Siddik has been the key figure in buying original registration papers from the RMV. They have prepared the documents at an outside location.

In the next step they sell the vehicle to a customer at a cheap rate and transferred the ownership at the RMV’s One Day Service which made the theft even difficult to figure out. Police said that they have earned millions of rupees by selling vehicles. They have been engaged in this business for years.

The arrested suspects are from Veyangoda, Kegalle, Kurunegala and Dodamgaslanda. The original owners and the duped buyers have lodged many complaints to recover their vehicles. SSP Vass Gunawardena, SP Chandana Alahakoon directs the investigations. Kurunegala SCIB OIC IP Wiwalarachchi, PS Ratnayake, Sunil, Gamini and PC Chandana and Prasanna carried out the raid.