Car thief uses Zipnet to extort money from owners in Delhi | Delhi News – Times of India
To get past this hurdle, Raj thought of an interesting idea. He would steal a vehicle, park it at his place and then look for the details of the stolen vehicle/owner on Zipnet (Zonal Integrated Police Network). He would then contact the owner on WhatsApp and ask them to pay a small amount of Rs 5000-10,000 to get their bike or car back.
With this little trick, Raj allegedly managed to target at least 16 people in the last few months. The latest attempt, however, had the cops on his trail and he was arrested. Cops have found that he had stolen vehicles, mostly bikes, from Moti Nagar, Khayala, Paschim Vihar, Prashant Vihar, Greater Kailash, Vikaspuri, Tilak Nagar, Najafgarh and Paharganj.
The accused told cops that he was a frequent surfer of Zipnet, where people can check the status of stolen vehicles in Delhi, Haryana, Chandigarh, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. “Users can check stolen vehicle information either by selecting FIR/DRC date range and state or by entering vehicle type, registration number, engine number and chassis number. Access to complete list of stolen vehicles is also available,” explained an official.
Raj walked into the police trap when they started investigating the theft of an Eeco van from southwest Delhi. “The team reached the spot and checked CCTV footage. The route followed by the culprits was ascertained and analysed,” said DCP (Dwarka) M Harshavardhan. In the meantime, the complainant received a WhatsApp call in which the caller stated that he knew about the thieves and where his stolen Eeco was parked. He was ready to share information if the complainant paid Rs 5,000 through Paytm.
The victim informed cops who mounted surveillance. Later, the suspect was arrested from Nihal Vihar and four stolen bikes were recovered from him.
