According to the police, the complainant works at a private courier company that specialises in delivering expensive or high-value items like jewellery and artefacts. (Representational image: Express Photo)The Delhi Police spent 24 hours piecing together clues, including a Rs 100 digital transaction and footage from 200 CCTV cameras, to solve the robbery case of a jewellery consignment worth Rs 4 crore and managed to nab four men involved in the crime from Jaipur.
The incident took place early Wednesday in Central Delhi’s Paharganj area when four men allegedly posing as policemen along with an associate allegedly robbed two courier company executives. They threw chilli powder into their eyes, snatched a jewellery consignment worth Rs 4 crore, and fled. The police said the incident took place between 4-5 am in Paharganj and a PCR call was made by locals around 4.49 am.
According to the police, the complainant works at a private courier company that specialises in delivering expensive or high-value items like jewellery and artefacts. Around 4.30 am, the complainant and his associate stepped out of their office with a consignment for Chandigarh and Ludhiana. The police said they were walking towards their vehicle when the four accused waylaid them.
During the investigation, the police scanned CCTV cameras installed near the courier company and found that the accused were conducting recce for the last 15 days. “In one of the videos, they found that one of the accused was standing outside a tea stall in the morning having tea. After a few minutes, he stopped a private cab driver engaging him in a discussion and took Rs 100 from him. He was also found using his mobile phone while he was talking to the cab driver. Police first questioned the owner of the tea stall, who said the accused bought a cup of tea from him, but he did not have cash,” said a police source.
Subscriber Only Stories
The tea stall owner confirmed to the police that the accused did stop the private cab driver and took Rs 100 from him after transferring him the money digitally. “The police in the meantime procured all the details of the cab driver, who told them that he received Rs 100 from the accused via a Paytm transaction. The police then approached the Paytm headquarters to get all the details, where they found the phone number of one of the accused, who is a resident of Najafgarh,” said a senior police officer.
Teams were sent to Najafgarh and the police found that the accused fled from his house along with his associates just before they reached. “With the help of technical surveillance, police got phone numbers of the other accused and they started tracking them down. After chasing them, police found that they went to hide in a flat in Jaipur from where they were caught,” said an officer.
DCP (Central district) Shweta Chauhan said, “After registering an FIR, we found during the investigation, that two executives of the courier company were carrying two bags and a box of expensive jewellery. They were on their way to Chandigarh to deliver the package. Four robbers waylaid them and started frisking them by posing as policemen. One of them was in a police uniform. Two of the accused later threw chilli powder and fled with all the ornaments.”
DCP Chauhan added: “The approximate value of the jewellery was about Rs 4 crore… the value is being verified as the consignment was received from different places such as Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat etc.”
The complainant told police that they get orders of jewellery regularly and have a “safe” procedure of transporting consignments all over India. Sometimes, the consignments are even delivered at odd hours, they said.