25-lakh robbery involving my friend's XUV500 number plate

An FIR was lodged against the registered owner of the Mahindra XUV500.

BHPian dicor recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

ISSUED IN PUBLIC INTEREST:

Earlier this month on 3rd of March, a Pune based friend who is settled in UAE, posted a picture of an XUV5OO in the XUV owner WA group asking if someone can recognize this XUV.

None of us could recognize it but we were curious to know but the person did not respond.

On 16th of March, he replied that the XUV is now found and all he said this XUV was involved in a criminal offence, and it used his XUV’s number plate.

Today he posted the full story:

He had listed his XUV5OO on OLX for sale. Criminals noted down his XUV’s number and used it in another identical XUV for Rs 2.5 million robbery.

An FIR was lodged against the registered owner of the Mahindra XUV500. Unfortunately, against my friend. As my friend is not in India so his family members were interrogated. Fortunately, he had installed the CCTV in the parking lot, and they were able to prove that the vehicle was stationary at the time of the incident.

Later police caught the actual criminals, and my friend took a sigh of relief. But before the dust was settled, the family had faced tough times for a week, that includes talking to lawyers, multiple trips to police station and still they will appear once at court:

Once I got a challan for lane cutting in Dhule (300 KMs away) for my Jupiter. When I had inspected the image, I realized that it was a multi axle truck which was using my Jupiter’s number.

While getting challans for traffic violations without valid reasons is something which happened to me twice, however this is first time I saw, number was used for criminal offence.

Key lessons:

• Don’t expose your registration number on open platforms like FB, OLX, forums etc.
• Make a permanent arrangement for surveillance. In such nasty conditions, we should be able to supply a substantial proof of our non-involvement.
• When you sell the car, take the ownership of transfer, rather than leaving it with buyer just to save few thousands. Even if you sell it to dealer with proper agreement, you should know that first legal point of contact will be vehicle registered owner, the agreement will come later in the picture.

Here's what BHPian Doge had to say on the matter:

Although it would never hurt to hide the registration number online, how difficult is it to find a mass market car like a black xuv around and just note the number and make duplicates? Seems like just a matter of bad luck rather than being careless I suppose.

Here's what BHPian vigsom had to say on the matter:

Thank you for this post, @dicor. I remember several years ago, a pic of my Toyota Corolla from this forum was used by someone in an olx ad. Fortunately the number plate wasn't in place since the car was being readied after a touch up job.

Lesson learnt : Never ever post with the number exposed.

Agree with the points you mentioned at the end as well. Unfortunately, the last one is still an area where there are no laws to protect the owner from harassment in India. I believe that there are rules in many countries where one has to clear one's name off the title even when the car is sold to a dealer. Not sure, and request others to clarify.

Here's what BHPian AKSarkar1 had to say on the matter:

This is a highly pertinent post, thank you very much for sharing this. Even the best of us who are very savvy with all things when it comes to the automotive world can make basic mistakes like this.

In the case of your friend it was a massive relief that they could prove the car being stationary. Generally the robbers copy plate numbers but the fact they had the same model and colour makes me sure of the fact that is was no coincidence.

Even on our forum from time to time members unintentionally expose their registration numbers, while us BHPians definitely mean no harm one can't forget that is an open access platform. I truly feel we as a community should pass a rule stating that unblurred number plate pics not allowed to safeguard our interests.

Thanks again for sharing!

Here's what BHPian bravo82in had to say on the matter:

Not just masking your registration number it’s also important to retain the following with you for a month atleast:

• Toll receipts/ Fastag balance deduction SMS.
• Parking receipts.
• Fuels bills.
• ATM receipts and SMS.
• Card Swipe machine receipt and SMS.
• Always sign visitor register while entering gated societies and Government offices.
• Always look at and get your presence registered at CCTV when entering restaurants, malls etc.
• Click pics with Geolocation on.

These insignificant things can save you big time if God forbid anything goes wrong.

I remember reading a news few years back when the domestic help was murdered while the owner was away. What saved him from murder charge was fuel bills and toll receipts.

Regards,

Bravo

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