Gone in seconds! Car thieves in Delhi using jammers to render GPS ineffective

NEW DELHI: Vehicle thieves in the city are now using electronic jammers to stop the GPS-fitted cars from alerting the owners and revealing their location. Police discovered this new aspect of automobile theft when they stumbled on a well-oiled network that was stealing cars in Delhi and sending them to areas like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and East Champaran.
M.Harsha Vardhan, DCP (Dwarka), confirmed the arrest of four members of the gang while others are being pursued. "We have recovered 12 stolen cars, an electronic jammer, 345 keys of various models of cars, a key-making machine and two programming machines worth several lakhs," Vardhan said.
The cops have also seized three pistols, 14 cartridges and three walkie-talkies, which the gang members used for communicating with each other.
The gang was busted by an anti-auto theft squad comprising ACP Ram Avtar, inspector Kamlesh and others. The team started with gathering clues and analysing CCTV footage related to recent incidents reported in and around Dwarka. Local informers were also roped in to collect intelligence and information in this regard.
The cops first nabbed a suspect named Sunil and his associate, Manjeet, from Dwarka Sector 26. They subsequently recovered six stolen cars from their hideouts along with a plethora of tools and instruments.
On the basis of the information furnished by the duo, the cops raided east Champaran in Bihar and arrested a receiver named Amjad Khan. Khan led the cops to his associate named Nakulam Bisai in Arunachal Pradesh, who ran a travel agency and used the stolen cars as taxis. Bisai conveyed the make, model and colour of the car needed by him and his associates to Khan who, in turn, passed on the information to Sunil and Manjeet.
The two car thieves used jammers to block the tracking signals of the stolen cars until they reached Arunachal, where the GPS was removed by engineers before deployment in the travel agency’s taxi fleet. The duo revealed that such jammers were being used by many other gangs too.
Owners of cars that didn’t come with the security device were also getting it installed from the accessory market for as low as Rs 5,000. Because of this, the gangs needed to bypass the technology that alerts owners to the car being moved and also send the car’s location. "The accused claimed that the jammers came for around Rs 1 lakh while the programming machines cost around Rs 1.8 lakh each,” DCP Vardhan said. “The key making machine is priced around Rs 1.6 lakh per piece."
Cops say that the GPS jammers are often used by celebrities and politicians who suspect they are being followed by someone or think their life is in danger. They use jammers also to stymie any tracking device somebody may have planted on their vehicle. But in the last few years, auto lifters have found the jammers useful to dodge police pursuits.
The cops fear that these devices are likely to be misused by kidnappers and human traffickers too. The portable GPS jamming device can effectively nullify GPS signals in an area measuring around 25 sq metres. Bigger devices with the dimensions of an internet modem are capable of jamming GPS signals over a bigger area.