Two held for stealing silencers of Maruti Eeco car vans

Ahmedabad Rural Police caught two members of a gang who have allegedly stolen silencers of 24 Maruti Eeco vans in last five months in order to collect metal dust from them and sell them at high prices.

The accused have been identified as Munaf alias Doso S Vora(57) and Tofik M Pinjara. Accused are residents of Dholka.

The gang used to target Maruti Eeco Vans parked in markets or isolated places such as Bareja, Kalol, Sanand, Kadi, Kathlal etc for its silencers. Later, they would extract platinum, palladium and rhodium metal dust from the silencers and sell them off.

Tofic has been held earlier too for same office in Anand district and has spend three months in prison.

According to set emission standards in India, all motor vehicles have catalytic converter in their exhaust system in order to meet emission standards. A catalytic converter acts as a filter on the exhaust emission which reduces the emittance of pollutants from the vehicle’s engine through the process of catalyzing a redox reaction. Therefore the exhaust pipes have to necessarily have a surface area coated with platinum, rhodium and palladium (known as platinum group metals (PGM). When a vehicle gets old and defunct, the catalytic converter can be recycled and the metals can be recovered. A new vehicle has higher amounts of the metal dust.

One Kg. metal dust (palladium) would fetch Rs. 10,000.

The reason they chose Maruti Eeco Vans only is because the silencer fitted in this vehicle is easier to detach and it has a higher amount of palladium.