Mumbai: 23-year-old man stole gold to buy high-end bikes, cars; held

Illustration/Ravi Jadhav

The Mumbai Police arrested a 23-year-old man from Navi Mumbai's Kamothe area for allegedly stealing gold and other valuables after breaking into over a dozen houses in Khar. Taking to Twitter, Mumbai Police said the Khar-Danda area witnessed a series of break-ins since the COVID-19 enforced lockdown began.

The accused's accomplice, identified as Saddam Shaikh alias Bengali (22), who used to fly down from another city to melt the gold was also arrested. Police officials said that the accused confessed of having committed the crimes and also gave information about his accomplice, a jeweller from West Bengal. Police officials said that the accused took the accomplice's help to melt and redesign gold which was later sold to unsuspecting jewellers.

According to a report in Times of India, the accused, identified as Samir Khan, is a school dropout and used the money to buy high-end cars and bikes. He also used the money to pay Rs 15,000 rent for a flat in a plush housing complex in Kamothe besides sending money to his parents in Delhi for monthly expenses.

Saddam, who had returned to his hometown, was lured to Mumbai by the police who asked the accused to call him seeking help in another crime. Police officials arranged air tickets worth Rs 12,000 for Saddam and laid a trap for him. Saddam fell in the trap and on Samir's request flew from Kolkata to Mumbai where he was arrested by the police on his arrival.

"Saddam believed Samir and agreed to come to Mumbai after we sent him details of the flight ticket on WhatsApp." a police officer was quoted as saying. The Khar police recovered a car, a racing bike,55 inch TV and other valuables worth Rs 15 lakh from the accused's possession.

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The accused have been booked under Sections 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property), 457 (lurking house-trespass or house-breaking by night in order to commit offence) and 380 (theft in dwelling house) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Additional commissioner of police Sandeep Karnik supervised the investigation, which was led by DCP zone 9 Abhishek Trimukhe, Khar police senior inspector Gajanan Kabdule and sub-inspector Sachin Trimukhe.

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