Thane: 4 persons arrested for stealing car silencers for 'platinum'

The Kalwa police arrested a fourmember gang on Friday for committing thefts of silencers of Eco cars from Thane Navi Mumbai Pune Rural and GoaOn June 6 Roshni Raut a resident of Kharegaon in Thane had filed a complaint claiming that the silencer of her Eco car had been stolen from her residential buildingAs per the complaint an offense was registered under IPC Section 379 theft A team led by senior inspector Sudesh Ajgaonkar and PSI Shirish Yadav was set up to find the culprits after similar cases were registeredldquoCCTV footage had captured the silencer thieves During the investigation the cops found that all the thieves had come from Kurla areardquo said an officer from Kalwa police stationThe police identified the accused persons as Shamshuddin Shah 21 Nadeem alias Nepali Qureshi 21 Shamshuddin Khan 22 and Saddam khan 26 All the accused residents of Kapadia Nagar were taken to the police station and interrogatedAlso read Thane Civic official accused of sexual harassment surrenderslsquoWhite gold rushrsquoDuring the interrogation the Kalwa police found out that this was not a simple case of theft but a lsquowhite gold rushrsquo ldquoWe were startled at first wondering why the accused were stealing just the silencer and not the whole car When the team arrested them and started interrogation we came to know that they were behind the 10 to 15gram platinum applied inside the silencerrdquo told DCP zone 1 Avinash AmbureldquoThey would remove the platinum metal in a workshop in Kurla realign the silencer and sell it in the marketrdquo Ambure addedThe bestknown use of platinum is in the catalytic converter that is part of the exhaust system in the automobile Instead of dispersing harmful carbon monoxides hydrocarbons and nitric oxide into the atmosphere catalysts convert these harmful emissions into harmless carbon dioxide and waterAccording to the police Saddam is the kingpin of the gang as he operated it and used to plan all the thefts He would take out fourwheelers and start removing silencers on the go A few months ago they had robbed a silencer in Goa when they were on a vacationThe accused have confessed to committing 25 similar thefts six in Thane six in Palghar three in Navi Mumbai nine in Pune Rural PimpriChinchwad Pune city and Goa All the offenses were committed in six months of 2021 The police have recovered 25 silencers worth Rs 650 lakh from their possession The accused will be in police custody till July 17