Men arrested for selling, stealing back used vehicle

Three people have been arrested for selling a used car and then stealing it back from the buyer with the help of a global positioning system (GPS) device, Minhang police said Thursday.

The three suspects, surnamed Sun, Li and Wang, admitted to stealing the car from the unwitting buyer after equipping it with a GPS system, according to a press release from the Minhang District Public Security Bureau.

The buyer, surnamed Zhang, reported the theft to police in March on the day after he bought the used black Toyota, including its license plate, for 200,000 yuan ($32,229).

Due to the limits the local government has placed on new vehicle registration, secondhand license plates have recently been selling at prices exceeding 100,000 yuan in Shanghai.

Zhang found the car on an online trading platform, police said. He immediately contacted the seller, and agreed to make the deal outside a bank in Zhoupu town in Pudong New Area. Zhang paid the seller 168,000 yuan up front, promising the rest after they completed transferring ownership of the car a few days later.

When Zhang woke up the next day, he found the car had disappeared from where he had parked it the previous night.

After Sun sold the car to Zhang, he and the two other suspects tracked the car with the GPS device and drove it away with a spare key.

The three suspects were still in police custody Thursday.