[darklord]

CHENNAI: A gang of robbers barged into a Hyundai car yard at Manapakkam here in the wee hours of Wednesday and drove away in seven of the automaker’s mid-range Creta model vehicles.

The keys left on the car door and the petrol filled in the tanks — meant to enable quicker shifting of the cars to showrooms — came in handy for the robbers, who overpowered sole security guard, Manoharan (54), who had been guarding 63 brand-new cars.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/citi...cle3473483.ece

[tharian]

What were they expecting?
Leaving the keys on the car door which some one would have noticed and leaked the information.

One guard for an open godown, the thieves wouldn't have had such an easy heist

[Hatari]

Robbers pelt stones at the gate and the guard opens it. How simple.

[aravind.anand]

And with brand new, un-registered cars, how would the Police trace them?
Would these cars carry an insurance from the manufacturer?

On an other note, I cross an open car yard on the way to my office everyday, and the area is pretty isolated from the city too - I have to admit, that such a thought has occurred to me as well
I was wondering if these cars would be easier to steal, and also tougher to track by the police and also lesser on the Karma part too

[Chetan_Rao]

Cars could end up anywhere from local hinterlands to smaller neighboring countries. Even if the cars are recovered, I don't think they could be sold as new, though I wouldn't put it past an Indian dealership to try.

[raghu.t.k]

The yard was shifted from porur only 2 days back, and this happens.. Looks like some insider job.

Also what can be done with a new unregistered vehicle. It would not have the required papers to get it registered, and in any case the manufacturer would have marked the vin as stolen!! Unless they go down the forged doc route, then anything is possible.

Now that reminds me of the case that happened up north where an old gentleman drove away after giving forged DDs. Whatever happened to those vehicles!?

[SmartCat]

Looks like the robbers are having their say on the recent Compact SUV debate.

[rselva]

5 cars were recovered...

However, with the police on their tail, the gang was forced to abandon five of the cars, priced between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 17 lakh, at Gangai Amman Koil Street in Valasaravakkam.

As to what would they do with unregistered cars...

Some of the abandoned cars were found with fake number plates and inquiries revealed that the plates had been purchased from a shop at Valasaravakkam on Tuesday.

Police said the robbers had parked the cars at Gangai Amman Koil Street and were attempting to fix the fake number plates on them when a police patrol prompted them to flee

[aravind.anand]

Originally Posted by rselva

5 cars were recovered...
As to what would they do with unregistered cars...

They ought to be really dumb thieves, as they seemed to have messed a seemingly easy to pull heist.

- Choose the right car - Check ( Police don't easily stop SUVs right? )
- Plan and get the cars out in the wee hours - Check
- Create fake number plates to disguise them - Check

And then they took it inside the city, near the shop they got the number plates from? For what? they forgot the screwdriver?

if I were the 'boss' of these 7 thieves, I would actually be doing this right now -

[fine69]

Originally Posted by aravind.anand

They ought to be really dumb thieves, as they seemed to have messed a seemingly easy to pull heist.....

These guys were definitely not professionals. A heist of this level calls for much better planning. Or, something went terribly wrong midway.

The cars should've been parked in a basement or an abandoned factory for a few days if the risk of taking them out of the city was high. Once the noise around it would've settled that is when they should've driven them out of the city, gradually.

Otherwise if the buyer was lined up already then the first thing one does is to get out of the city as fast as possible, getting out of the state is preferrable in fact.

Abandoning 5 cars meant that somebody either panicked or they got their hands on some information which made the plan go awry.

Usually if a stolen car catches too much of attention then these guys wait it out. Also, professional car jackers don't drive interstate themselves. They usually pay "professional drivers" (meant for this specific purpose) a few thousand to drive and deliver cars to the dealer. The risk isn't much when one is working the car, instead it is ten-fold when one is driving around in it, hence, the drivers.

[govigov]

This is what I have been told by an SA. I am not sure how true this information is -

There are RFID stickers on the windshield of most cars. These are like mac addresses on a PC and get picked up at the toll plaza's if they enter the fast tag lane. This information can then be used to trace the path which the car took.

Again, I have no idea if this is true or not.

[NPV]

As per this report, one more car (6th Creta) has been found after residents reported it to the police.

Source:http://www.newindianexpress.com/citi...cle3475061.ece

[DragonHawk]

Originally Posted by govigov

This is what I have been told by an SA. I am not sure how true this information is -

There are RFID stickers on the windshield of most cars. These are like mac addresses on a PC and get picked up at the toll plaza's if they enter the fast tag lane. This information can then be used to trace the path which the car took.

Again, I have no idea if this is true or not.

Hyundai uses RFID to track auto parts as they traverse the supply chain. It is mainly used for for checking if the sequence is right at various junctions like vendors' gates, factory gates, parts centre. So I really doubt this RFID tag will be picked up in the fasttag lane.

[NPV]

Originally Posted by DragonHawk

Hyundai uses RFID to track auto parts as they traverse the supply chain. It is mainly used for for checking if the sequence is right at various junctions like vendors' gates, factory gates, parts centre. So I really doubt this RFID tag will be picked up in the fasttag lane.

The RFID @govigov mentioned is the government mandated one that is now found on the windshield of all new cars, not the ones used in the assembly line by Hyundai

See this post for a sample - here

Originally Posted by govigov

This is what I have been told by an SA. I am not sure how true this information is -

There are RFID stickers on the windshield of most cars. These are like mac addresses on a PC and get picked up at the toll plaza's if they enter the fast tag lane. This information can then be used to trace the path which the car took.

FasTag uses a separate RFID issued by ICICI, not the manufacturer issued RFID on the windshield that is now there on new cars and from what I know, none of the tolls read the manufacturer issued RFIDs.

[aravind.anand]

Originally Posted by Vik0728

Hey aravind.anand all due respect to your view buddy, but i have a very funny feeling that your plan is for real !!

You should have seen the way I eyed at the Skoda stock yard yesterday evening on my way back I started doubting my own ethics actually.

One 54 year old man guarding 63 cars... Hmmm, some trust worthy Arnold Schwarzenegger he must be

On an other note, is there an idea if there is some kind of insurance for these cars, before they get registered? Theft is one thing, damage during transit or storage is one other thing. How do dealers manage this?