8 jobless graduates pulled off Gurugram's Manappuram branch gold heist
GURUGRAM: It wasn't a gang of seasoned criminals that pulled off the stunning gold heist at a Manappuram finance branch in Gurugram last week. A diploma holder from NIIT led this pack of unusual suspects - young men, all graduates, bunched together by desperation for money.
Police tracked down the robbers on Friday night and Saturday morning, less than 48 hours after eight men had walked away with 32kg gold worth Rs 9 crore on February 9 from the vaults of the firm. Four of them were arrested, three in Gurgaon and the fourth, believed to be the ringleader, in Ahmedabad on Saturday.
Devender was in a room at the Lemon Tree Hotel in the Gujarat metropolis with a SpiceJet airhostess when a Gurgaon police team got to him. The four others involved in the heist were traced to Kanpur and a police team dispatched there to arrest them. Devender had flown to Ahmedabad after the heist to scout for a buyer. The booty was stashed in a room in a building of DLF-3 where he and his three arrested accomplices were staying as paying guests. Most of it, 30kg, was found, kept in 828 pouches.
Aadhaar card led cops to suspects
Police had suspected they were not dealing with a gang of seasoned criminals because of glaring clues the robbers had left behind. They had not hidden their faces, which were clearly captured by CCTV cameras. Secondly, Devender had produced his own Aadhaar ID at the Railway Road branch of the gold finance company they looted.
The guard had managed to jot down just 6 digits of the Aadhaar number but noted down the address on it, which was of Devender's home at Barah Khurd village in Jind. From there, police managed to track down Devender's cousin Bijender who was arrested from Sector 43 in Gurugram on Friday night. He led the cops to Manoj Saini and Vikas Gupta, who were apprehended in Sector 29 on Saturday morning. Saini is from Farrukhnagar and Gupta from Kidwai Nagar in Kanpur. All of them had lost large sums of money betting on cricket matches, police said. Devender particularly, was in dire need of cash as he had lost Rs 25 lakh in gambling.
"Devender was the mastermind. All the accused were involved in betting and had lost huge amounts in it. They had decided to rob the gold finance company to pay for their losses in betting," said Sumit Kuhar, DCP (crime), Gurgaon. Even as they got to Bijender, police had also stumbled on another lead that proved vital. Scanning the call records of Gupta, they found a number that Gupta frequently called or received calls from. It turned out to be of his girlfriend, who also lives as a paying guest in DLF-3 and works in a private firm. When police quizzed her, she confessed she knew about the plan.
It was she who led the cops to Gupta and Saini. She called them to Sector 29 for a meeting and took an auto there that was driven by a cop. Gupta and Saini arrived in a Verna, which Devender owns, a police officer said. They were arrested.
Police tracked down the robbers on Friday night and Saturday morning, less than 48 hours after eight men had walked away with 32kg gold worth Rs 9 crore on February 9 from the vaults of the firm. Four of them were arrested, three in Gurgaon and the fourth, believed to be the ringleader, in Ahmedabad on Saturday.
Devender was in a room at the Lemon Tree Hotel in the Gujarat metropolis with a SpiceJet airhostess when a Gurgaon police team got to him. The four others involved in the heist were traced to Kanpur and a police team dispatched there to arrest them. Devender had flown to Ahmedabad after the heist to scout for a buyer. The booty was stashed in a room in a building of DLF-3 where he and his three arrested accomplices were staying as paying guests. Most of it, 30kg, was found, kept in 828 pouches.
Aadhaar card led cops to suspects
Police had suspected they were not dealing with a gang of seasoned criminals because of glaring clues the robbers had left behind. They had not hidden their faces, which were clearly captured by CCTV cameras. Secondly, Devender had produced his own Aadhaar ID at the Railway Road branch of the gold finance company they looted.
The guard had managed to jot down just 6 digits of the Aadhaar number but noted down the address on it, which was of Devender's home at Barah Khurd village in Jind. From there, police managed to track down Devender's cousin Bijender who was arrested from Sector 43 in Gurugram on Friday night. He led the cops to Manoj Saini and Vikas Gupta, who were apprehended in Sector 29 on Saturday morning. Saini is from Farrukhnagar and Gupta from Kidwai Nagar in Kanpur. All of them had lost large sums of money betting on cricket matches, police said. Devender particularly, was in dire need of cash as he had lost Rs 25 lakh in gambling.
"Devender was the mastermind. All the accused were involved in betting and had lost huge amounts in it. They had decided to rob the gold finance company to pay for their losses in betting," said Sumit Kuhar, DCP (crime), Gurgaon. Even as they got to Bijender, police had also stumbled on another lead that proved vital. Scanning the call records of Gupta, they found a number that Gupta frequently called or received calls from. It turned out to be of his girlfriend, who also lives as a paying guest in DLF-3 and works in a private firm. When police quizzed her, she confessed she knew about the plan.
It was she who led the cops to Gupta and Saini. She called them to Sector 29 for a meeting and took an auto there that was driven by a cop. Gupta and Saini arrived in a Verna, which Devender owns, a police officer said. They were arrested.
