Thieves make a mockery of GPS in rental scooters

Vehicle thieves seem to be keeping a step ahead of law-enforcement agencies.

Days after city police chief Bhaskar Rao urged the people to instal GPS in their vehicles, three young men allegedly stole five rental scooters and immediately deactivated their tracking devices. Police, however, recovered the scooters by arresting three suspects.

The scooters belong to Vogo Automotive Pvt Ltd and were stolen from the rental firm's docking station in Singasandra, South Bengaluru. The theft was discovered around 10 am on February 25 when Choodesh Kumar B, 30, a recovery executive at the firm, arrived to take stock of the scooters.

All the stolen scooters were Honda Activa 5G, bearing registration numbers KA 51/AE 0261, KA 03/AH 6976, KA 05/AK 1438, KA 51/AC 8365 and KA 03/AG 7255. They are valued at more than Rs 2.5 lakh. Kumar later filed a complaint with the jurisdictional Begur police.

Kumar told the police that when he and his colleagues tried to track the location of the scooters, they discovered that the thieves had deactivated the GPS.

According to Kumar, this is not the first theft of Vogo scooters which are usually parked in the docking stations where customers can pick them up and drop off. Thieves often pose as customers and rent the scooters legally. No one would suspect them, he said. But in this instance, the scooters were stolen with their ignition wires being disconnected directly, he added.

An officer from the Begur police station said they had recovered the scooters from three youths living in a slum near Singasandra. "We caught them when they were doing wheelies on the stolen scooters. We are questioning them if they stole any vehicle in the past. They seem to be experts at deactivating the GPS," the officer added.