They buy air tickets to take off with your baggage

Interestingly, in some cases, these thieves move in a group and plan an immaculate theft. On June 17, seven persons checked into a lodge near Bangalore airport.

One member of the gang stayed at the lodge, while other six hired a taxi to the airport.

At the airport, one of them stayed on in the taxi, while the rest checked into the international airport with their tickets. All seven kept communicating through phones or hand signals.

Soon, the group homed in on a vulnerable passenger. As one of them engaged him in conversation by asking him flight timings, two others picked up his bag covered by the other two. The bag reached the taxi and then the lodge.

Later, the police managed to nab three of the gang, including one Sheikh Abdullah. All of them turned out to be residents of Tamil Nadu’s Trichy district. They were apparently planning similar heists in Pune, Mumbai and Delhi.

Another case was reported from Mumbai’s Sahar Airport, where a person was caught red-handed walking out with the bag of a woman passenger last May. The police recovered three open air-tickets of Air Mauritius and Jet from the accused, who was identified as Sampat from Andhra Pradesh.

At the departure lobby, Sampat had befriended a South African woman who was travelling with two children. When the flight was delayed, Sampat asked the woman to take care of his bag as he had to go to the toilet. Soon the woman developed faith in him and she too left behind her baggage and went along with her two children to the rest room.

But as soon as the woman left, Sampat picked up the heaviest bag and walked out.

In all these cases, the police were able to nab the criminals using CCTV footage. Sampat was arrested and let out on bail. But the youth was apprehended again when he tried to pull off the same trick with another passenger a couple of months ago.

A CISF official said the check-in point are most vulnerable for such thefts, warning that passengers whose flights are delayed late for hours will have to be more careful about their luggage.

“They sit and wait at the terminal looking for vulnerable passengers,’’ a senior airport official added.