If you think your keyless car is protected by the latest security features it comes with, you’re mistaken. Lifting a vehicle isn’t a big deal now. Or, how do you explain the recent incidents in Lahore where such vehicles were picked up by a gang believed to have cracked the digital codes the cars’ security features are equipped with.

Apparently, the car lifters are ‘qualified’ to defeat the latest technology which was marketed as highly efficient and foolproof, particularly insofar as the highly expensive luxury cars are concerned.

Till the filing of this story, the police had busted a four-member gang, said to have operate in various parts of the country, and arrested one Afnan Khan, aged 26. The police have also recovered the gadgets used by the gang (see the image below), which comprises special automotive key programming equipment such as jammers, that can be purchased for Rs 150,000.

It is obvious that technology can be put to most criminal of uses. This is a challenge for the law enforcement agencies working to make Lahore a “model safe city.”

It should also serve as a wakeup call for the car manufacturing companies that claim to have spent fortunes on installing the most advanced fool-proof security systems in the vehicles of latest models. It is ironic that where the multinational automobile industry is employing high-end digital technology that includes fingerprint recognition in keyless cars, tech-savvy criminals are able to outwit them.

According to the Anti Vehicle Lifting Staff (AVLS) SP, Aftab Phularwan, the police resolved the mystery behind the gang when Afnan Khan was arrested.

“[The accused] Khan confessed to having bought the special automotive key programming equipment to start the car,” says the SP, adding that the AVLS, Lahore, was able to trace and arrest him at Nawab Town after hectic efforts that took the police almost two weeks.

He says the police are making all-out efforts to apprehend the rest of the gang members.

“[The accused] Khan confessed to having bought the special automotive key programming equipment to start the car,” says the SP, adding that the AVLS, Lahore, was able to trace and arrest him at Nawab Town after hectic efforts that took the police almost two weeks.

Khan, a father of two, has “stolen many an expensive vehicle from Lahore, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala and Sialkot,” Phularwan says. “He would hand over the car to another gang member who would then drive it to Peshawar via GT Road.”

About the modus operandi of the gang, the SP says, “The gang would spot a vehicle and, after breaking the rear glass, they’d be able to open it. Then they would neutralise the car tracker system with the help of jammers and decode the digital security system. Once they had installed their own fingerprints, they were able to take away the vehicle wherever they wished to.”

The SP further says that the automotive key programming equipment helped the criminals steal the vehicles in 5–10 minutes. He says most of the stolen vehicles from the Punjab were sold at throwaway prices in Bannu, Kohat, Mardan, Charsadda and Peshawar.

“The carriers are paid between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000 per stolen vehicle, no matter how expensive it is. The dealers operating the illegal businesses in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) are the prime beneficiaries of the operation.”

The SP states that the gang used to “strike at midnight or in the wee hours. These hours are the most conducive for them. They are able to whisk the vehicles out of not just Lahore but also the Punjab.”

Phularwan says that the authorities are aware that the KP is a thriving stolen vehicles market. “There are 20-25 deras of stolen car dealers operating in the KP for a long time. Once a stolen car has reached the KP market, it’s difficult for the Punjab Police to recover it.”

The SP says if there was no demand for these cars, there would be no one working for them.

This scribe had the chance to speak with the suspect Afnan Khan who said that he was “ashamed of what I have done. I’m an educated person. I have had a job in hotel management, but when I came in contact with these [gangsters], I was lured into their world.”

The writer is a senior   journalist and can be reached at  ahsanzia155@gmail.com