New Delhi, Jul 24 (IANS): A gang of thieves involved in stealing high-end luxury cars in the city has been busted and three people arrested, a Delhi Police official said on Monday.

The accused have been identified as scrap dealer Pradeep, 35, a resident of Subhash Place, Manish Bansal, 35, and Rahul Kumar, 23, both residents of Budh Vihar.

Police have also recovered seven luxury cars and parts of cars from the possession of the accused.

According to police, on July 4, an FIR under Section 379 (theft) of the Indian Penal Code was registered at Dabri police station wherein the complainant stated that someone had stolen his Santro car. During investigation, the police team tasked to crack the case, visited the spot of incident and scanned the CCTV footage of the route.

"Local informers were also roped into the area to collect intelligence and information regarding the culprits. After the continuous efforts of the team, finally on July 14, Manish, and Rahul were apprehended from Budh Vihar in Rohini area," Deputy Commissioner of Police, Dwarka, M. Harsha Vardhan said.

At their instance, a total of six luxury cars and two scooties were recovered and were found stolen from various places across the city. "During investigation, one receiver of stolen cars, Pradeep, was also apprehended. One stolen Santro car and scrap engine of a stolen Honda City car was also recovered from his possession," he said.

On interrogation, Manish and Rahul disclosed that they run a motor workshop in Budh Vihar and both got into love marriages to their girlfriends and were presently residing separate from their family in rented accommodations.

"To meet financial requirements of the family, they make a plan to earn easy money. As per plan, when any make/model car reached their workshop for repair, instead of purchasing the required parts, they used to steal a car of the same model and use the spare parts of that. After that, the remaining body of the car was sold at Mayapuri auto-market to a scrap dealer," the DCP added.