The Panvel railway police have arrested four people in connection with a mobile theft racket and recovered 22 mobile phones worth ₹2.45 lakh from them. Nineteen of the phones were found hidden in a secret compartment in their car.
The four arrested accused have been identified as Chandra Ram Reddy (23), Dipu Ramesh Patel (23), Charan Potraj (18) and Venkatesh Gokar (23).
“Their level of planning suggests that they might have committed similar crimes elsewhere,” Purushottam Karad, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Western), Government Railway Police, said.
Two or three of the accused would enter a train and swipe passengers’ phones. They would pass them to their accomplices on the station, who in turn would hide them in the car.
The car in question belonged to the aunt of one of the accused, and was registered in Andhra Pradesh. “The accused had made modifications to the back seat and created a secret compartment, in which they would store the mobiles,” Mr. Karad said.
The car would usually be parked at the station where the accused had planned their heist.
Mr. Karad said the racket came to light on November 22, when a suspicious person was spotted by the Panvel Railway police near Khandeshwar station. The person, on seeing the police, fled the scene in the car. The Panvel GRP then alerted other agencies, including the Highway police, who detained Mr. Reddy and Mr. Patel at Kolhapur.
Officials from Panvel GRP then went to Kolhapur and brought the two along with the car to the city.
“Language was a barrier initially, but we managed to interrogate them and they confessed to stealing three phones, which we matched with CCTV camera footage. They revealed the location of two accomplices, whom we arrested subsequently,” Mr. Karad said.
Initially, the police had no idea about the phones in the car, but the hidden compartment was revealed during a check. The police have located the owners of nine of the 22 phones, while the search for the rest is on.