PUNE Rural police have detected at least 10 cases of thefts of silencers of Maruti Suzuki Eeco for the extraction of valuable metallic dust from the catalytic converter of these vehicles, after the arrest of a wanted suspect in an ongoing investigation into a slew of such cases in the recent past on Pune-Ahmednagar Road.

A team from the Local Crime Branch (LCB) of the Pune Rural Police had been probing multiple cases of thefts of silencer units of the Maruti Eeco multi utility vehicles. In April, working on a tip-off from the informants, the police found that a car repair garage owner from Parner taluka of neighbouring Ahmednagar district was involved in a racket of selling the valuable metal dust extracted from these silencers.

Accordingly, in April and May, the police had arrested garage owner Shanoor Muner Shaikh and his aide Sameer Rashid Shaikh, both residents of Ralegan Therpal village in Parner taluka. The police team, however, was on the lookout for one more key suspect, identified as Akash Bhandalkar.

On Saturday, the LCB personnel received a tip-off that Bhandalkar was coming to Ranjangaon area in Pune district. A trap was laid and Bhandalkar was arrested. He was handed over to Shikrapur police for further probe. Officials said that after the arrest of the third suspect, they have confirmed the involvement of these suspects in 10 cases of thefts registered at Shikrapur, Shirur and Ranjangaon police station in 2022 alone. Their role in past cases is also being investigated.

“Our probe suggests that these suspects used to sell the metal dust from these silencers to another suspect. We have launched a search for this suspect,” said Inspector Ashok Shelke, in-charge of the LCB.

Investigators believe that a racket which has a supply chain spread over many cities of the country is operating behind this. Officials said the existing emission norms in the country mandate all new vehicles to have a catalytic converter in their silencers or emission systems. The catalytic converter filters the pollutants that the combustion of engines produces. For this purpose, the emission pipes have inside surface coated with a mixture of platinum, rhodium and palladium. If a vehicle is new, then these metals are in higher quantities in their silencer units. While some other cars too have these layers, the reason the silencers of this specific make are mostly targeted is possibly higher amounts of some of the metals and comparative ease in detaching the unit from the car.”

Police said that mixed dust of three metals is sold at Rs 3,000 per gram in the illegal markets. Similar thefts of Eeco MUV silencers have been reported in the past from various places including Pune City police jurisdiction. In April, the Pune City police had arrested two suspects Shivprasad Rokde (21) and Ram Dhole (20), both residents of Alandi and had detected six cases of thefts of silencer of the Eeco MUV.

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