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A Kia Motors facility close to Penukonda town in the Sri Sathya Sai district of Andhra Pradesh has had 900 hundred automobile engines stolen.
During the March year-end audit, the company got to know about the theft.(Photo: Kia)
In Andhra Pradesh’s Sri Sathya Sai district, around 900 car engines have been reported stolen from the Kia Motors manufacturing plant close to Penukonda town.
When the company conducted its year-end audit in March this year, it came across the shocking incident of 900 engines being stolen from the Kia Motors plant.
According to reports, Kia Motors was initially hesitant to file a formal complaint and asked the police department to look into the matter informally.
However, after the police department made it clear that an official write-up was necessary for the investigation to proceed, Kia Motors officials filed a formal complaint with the Penukonda Industrial Estate police station on March 19. A case was filed, and the investigation began.
Sri Sathya Sai district Superintendent of Police (SP) V Rathna looked into the Kia Motors manufacturing plant and its records. “We have formed three special teams to investigate the case. Our teams are travelling across the country to gather crucial records, and the case investigation is progressing at a brisk pace”, Rathna told Times of India (ToI).
Penukonda Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Y Venkateswarulu, who is part of the case, told ToI that the theft of vehicle engines at Kia Motors began five years ago, in 2020.
“As per preliminary police investigation, 900 car engines were stolen in a phased and planned manner in the last five years. This is an insider’s job and we suspect that there was a connivance between the ex-employees and the current employees at Kia Motors in the well-planned car engine theft,” Venkateswarulu told the publication.
The police department initially thought that the car engines that were shipped from Tamil Nadu to the Kia Motors plant in Penukonda might have been stolen during the shipment, but following a preliminary investigation, they came to the conclusion that all of the car engines were stolen from the plant by tampering with the records.
However, in response to accusations that some 900 car engines had been taken from the company’s Penukonda manufacturing facility, Kia Motors said that production output at the factory was not hampered in any way. Kia Motors declined to comment on the matter, citing an ongoing police investigation.
