Five persons including four who posed as officials of the Income Tax (IT) department to rob two Kerala gold carriers of four kg of gold ingots have been arrested from Kolhapur in Maharashtra by the Bangalore Central Crime Branch (CCB) police. Proceeds of the crime worth Rs 1.76 crore has been recovered from those arrested. The gold carriers identified as Anand and Mahesh, both residents of Thalassery in Kannur district of Kerala, were robbed by four men who received information about the gold consignment in their possession from a rival gold carrier. The accused have been identified as Sarfaz Khan, Javeed Harun Sheik, Shalal Mohammad Makandar and Ramjij Chaus, all four are residents of Kolhapur and Praveen, a carrier of gold and resident of Sangli in Maharashtra. Police said that one more person Santhosh Kalkutigi of Sangli who was involved in the crime was at large. Based on the tip off given by the rival gold carrier Praveen the gang of five robbers posed as IT officials on November 6 and pulled Anand and Mahesh from a bus bound to Kerala at Madiwala in South Bangalore. The victims Anand and Mahesh who were working in a gold bullion shop in Talacheri town surrendered 4 kg of gold ingots to the robbers after they claimed to be IT officers. The victims were booked on a private bus from Kalasipalya to Thalassery that departed at 10.20 pm on November 6. Two of the accused persons Sarfaraz Khan and Makandar boarded the bus with the two gold carriers without buying a ticket claiming that they would buy the tickets at Madiwala where three more friends would join them. As soon as the bus reached Madivala the robbers who were on the bus approached the gold carriers and ordered them to disembark from the bus by flashing fake IT department identity cards. Once they disembarked three other men - Santosh, Javeed Harun Sheik and Ramji Chaus - joined the group pretending to be senior IT Officers. The gang of robbers told the gold carriers that they were under arrest and forced them to surrender the gold bullion in their possession and fled the scene. The victims approached the local Madiwala police station and filed a complaint about the incident. The case was transferred to the CCB for investigation. Using CCTV footage available for the various locations where the paths of the gold carriers and the robbers crosssed including bus stands, traffic lights and by studying the video footage for toll plazas exiting Bangalore the CCB police managed to narrow down on a Maharashtra registered car MH 09 DH 3609 as the car used by the suspects for the robbery. The car was tracked down to Kolhapur and four of the five suspects were arrested with the help of the Kolhapur Crime Branch police. The police recovered a total of Rs 1.76 crore in cash and goods following the arrest. The police have recovered gold ingots worth Rs.1.04 crore, one excavator worth Rs 30 lakh, which was purchased by the accused with money from the sale of stolen gold. They also seized Rs 42.1 lakh in cash from Sarfaroz Khan’s residence and Rs 45,000 cash from Makandar.
