In a shocking development, two cops were arrested along with a man in Mumbai over a conspiracy to steal gold worth over Rs 2 crore from a jeweller, an official said on Monday.
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The Three Musketeers
The two railway Government Railway Police (GRP) and a Mangaluru-based jeweller’s employee were held for allegedly stealing 4.5 kilograms of gold worth Rs 2.47 crore, PTI reported.
The accused have been identified as Nitin Patil, 28, the gold trader’s employee and, Vikas Pawar (30) and Prabhakar Natekar (29), both attached to the Thane GRP.
Series of events
On December 7, the jeweller sent Patil to deliver 4.5 kgs of gold to Zaveri Bazaar for making ornaments. He was assigned to bring the ornaments back to the owner, but he chose to cut all communications.
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On December 9, he reconnected with his employer and informed him that he had been mugged. Upon this, the businessman asked him to approach the police station, which Patil did on the same day.
“Patil claimed that he had taken a bus after reaching Navi Mumbai, and met two people, who gave him something to eat that rendered him unconscious. When he regained consciousness, he found himself at the Juinagar railway station and the gold was missing,” Ravindra Ranshevre, senior police inspector, told Hindustan Times.
To verify his claims, the cops checked the CCTV camera footage from all bus stops near the station and spotted Patil getting off a bus.
“In the footage, Patil was seen to be in full possession of his senses and did not seem drugged or disoriented. We obtained his call detail record (CDR) and questioned him. When circumstantial evidence against him started piling up, he could not offer any satisfactory explanations and ultimately confessed to having planned the theft,” said an officer.
A case of fabricated story
During interrogation, Patil revealed that he had handed over the gold to the two GRP constables – of which Natekar belonged to his village in Sangli.
Patil created a story around the theft that he was drugged and robbed while Natekar headed to his hometown with the gold.
To authenticate his account, Patil even took sleeping pills and laid down near railway tracks in Navi Mumbai.
Gold recovered by police
After discovering the truth, police arrested the trio and recovered gold from Natekar.
According to police, an FIR under section 408 (criminal breach of trust), 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy) and other relevant provisions of the IPC has been registered against the trio.
Also, police revealed that the trio planned to hide the gold till the matter cooled down and sell it later.
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