A fleet of stolen cars impounded after the arrests. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

The kingpin of an inter-state car theft racket and four of his accomplices have been arrested in Salt Lake.

The alleged kingpin, 28-year-old Rajiv Ghosh, also known as Raju or Bidya, is the owner of a chain of eateries in north-east Calcutta, known as Rajkumar Sweets.

He allegedly used to hide the stolen cars along with his accomplice, Samir Dhali. The 36-year-old, who has also been arrested, runs a grocery shop.

Ghosh, a resident of Chinar Park, in Teghoria, kept the cars in a rented garage near his house. Dhali, who lives in Raghunathpur, kept the cars in the garage on the ground floor of his four-storeyed house.

Baguiati Atghara resident Shyamal Das, 27, Raghunathpur East resident Mukul Das, 19, and Baguiati Noapara resident Biswajit Sardar, 30, were the others arrested in connection with the case. Dhali’s brother Sudhir is suspected of being involved in the racket. He is absconding.

According to police, Shyamal stole the cars, transported them and prepared false papers, while Mukul Das handled the money matters. The racket mostly operated in Salt Lake, Dum Dum Park, New Town, Rajarhat, Lake Town and the adjoining areas. The cars were transported to Jharkhand, Bihar, Tripura and some other states to be sold there.

“We received a tip-off that a garage in Baguiati was selling cars at a very low price. Officers went there in the guise of customers to get the registration numbers of the cars, which were found to be stolen,” said North 24-Parganas police superintendent Supratim Sarkar.

Eight stolen cars — two Tata Indicas, two Maruti Altos, a Maruti Zen, a Hyundai Santro, a Tata Sumo and a Mahindra Scorpio — were impounded during the arrests. The owners of four of the cars have been traced.

The police suspect that several members of the racket are at large. A district police team will travel to Tripura on Wednesday for further investigation.