Trio held for cheating auto rickshaw passengers

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police has arrested three cheats from south west Delhi's Subroto Park area who duped and robbed auto-rickshaw passengers.

Police on Friday said that the accused were identified as leader Sanjiv Gill, Ritesh and Pankaj.

Explaining the modus operandi of the accused, cops said that Ritesh, who drove an auto, and Pankaj, who posed as a passenger, would find soft targets from bus stands and convince them to enter the auto.

After a while, the two would pretend as if policemen were conducting checking some distance away.

They would tell the passenger that the cops may be imposters and would convince him to place his valuables in a large envelope, so that it won't be taken away during checking, to which the passenger usually complied

Gill, claiming to be a CBI officer, would then stop the auto and claim to inspect it.

While Gill pretended to check the auto, he would slyly replace the envelope with valuables with a different envelope and place it in the auto.

Eventually, all the accused used to flee with the victim's belongings.

On Thursday evening, after being tipped off about the location of the accused, police laid a trap near Ring Road bus stand. Soon, they spotted the auto used by the accused near Dhaula Kuan and the auto was stopped.

When the three accused tried to flee from the spot, a police party immediately chased them and caught hold of them.

During their search, four ATM cards and 12 yellow envelopes were recovered from the accused.