Thoothukudi district police has busted a gang that was trying to sell six containers of a “mystery substance” claiming it to be iridium here on Sunday.
Apart from arresting four persons, the police also seized a SUV and two sharp weapons and a compact disc on iridium.
“We need to ascertain what the substance is by sending it to a laboratory,” Superintendent of Police, S. Jayakumar, said.
Talking to reporters, he said that the police received a tip-off from one S. Thangam (55) of Muthiahpuram about a gang that had sought his help to sell iridium, worth several crores of rupees.
Based on the alert, a special police team, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police (Thoothukudi Rural), Ponnarasu, and SIPCOT police station Inspector of Police, Muthusubramanian, tracked down the suspects.
The police identified them as S. Vaithiyalingam (65) of Karaikudi and K. Muthuramalingam (45) of Mudukulathor and P. Mariyadhas (40) and M. Murugan (47), both from Thoothukudi.
During enquiry, they said that they had got the iridium from a person in Pattukottai.
They claimed that the iridium had been stolen from the Defence Research and Development Organisation in Mumbai.
Mr. Jayakumar said that the worth of the substance can be ascertained only if the genuineness of the material was established.
However, he appealed to the people, especially industrialists, to be wary of such gangs who had come up with ‘novel ideas’ of selling vastu-compliant objects like iridium, temple ‘kalasams’ and also sand boa claiming that these objects would bring good fortune.