The Mulleriyawa Police had seized 17 cars and a van worth over Rs. 100 million and arrested three persons involved in a large scale racket of obtaining vehicles on rent and selling them, Police Spokesman DIG Ajith Rohana said yesterday, January 12.
The racketeers had rented the vehicles by furnishing forged identity cards, driving licenses and passports containing false addresses and changed the registration numbers and chassis numbers of those vehicles.
They forged documents for those vehicles and sold them in a car sale centre in Mtulleriyawa.
The suspects taken into custody were from Yakkala, Meerigama and Magalegoda, DIG Rohana said.
Some more suspects were to be taken into custody on information provided by the suspects in custody and police teams were tracing their whereabouts, DIG Rohana said.
He said the vehicles taken into custody were kept at the Mulleriyawa Police yard and those who had been victims of the racket were requested to visit the Mulleriyawa Police to see whether their vehicles were among those recovered.
He said the suspects would be further interrogated to find out whether more vehicles had been sold to third parties.
DIG Rohana urged the owners of vehicles or those who are operating rent-a-car centres to take appropriate precautionary steps to prevent them being victims of such rackets.
