Mahasamund (Chhattisgarh): Not many of us may know that some of the four-wheelers on Indian roads are mobile depositories of a precious and rare chemical element—a metal costlier than gold. A bunch of very resourceful people from Chhattisgarh knew that Palladium is a byproduct of hydrocarbon combustion in vehicles. Armed with the knowledge and talent to extract the metal from exhaust silencers of cars, they ran a venture which, however, did not go down very well with the law enforcers in Chhattisgarh.
Chhattisgarh Police have caught a gang of thieves who were involved in stealing the dust of Palladium from the silencer of the Maruti Eeco vehicles. Dust worth Rs 4 lakh has been recovered from the arrested seven accused. One of the arrested accused are residents of Mahasamund, four from Raipur and two are from Bhilai.
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The gang used to steal Palladium from the silencers of cars which they first take on rent from private vendors. According to police, they stole Palladium from 48 Maruti Eeco vehicles in Mahasamund, Gariaband, Dhamtari, Baloda Bazar districts of Chhattisgarh. The police have seized 20 kg of smoke dust from the accused, from which Palladium is extracted (estimated price Rs 4 lakh). Two bikes, 7 mobile phones, 7 thousand rupees in cash have also been recovered.
The police swung to action after receiving information from an informer that a Govind Singh Rajput, a resident of Ganjpara, takes a Maruti Eeco vehicles on rent and along with his associates steals the metal dust from silencers. Police seized the dust while the gang was reportedly trying to sell the metal dust (Palladium). The police launched a raid at Mahasamund bus stand and subsequently nabbed Govind Singh with Palladium dust. Govind revealed that the price of metal dust in the market is more than gold. He confessed that he took 48 Eco Maruti vehicles on rent from various places.
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