Gang new to city steals silk saris in sleight of hand

A gang of three men and two women went to a garment store in the guise of customers and stole five silk saris worth Rs 40,000 by diverting the attention of the shopkeeper. They later escaped in a van. The entire act, from the theft to the escape, has been caught on camera.

Leena, 34, runs Chandana Silks in Kumaraswamy Layout 2nd Stage and lives next door. She narrated to DH how the theft occurred.

Around 2.25 pm on March 8, when she was having lunch after locking the glass door of the store, someone rang the doorbell. She came out and found a man and an elderly woman who introduced themselves as customers and asked if she could them silk saris.

Leena opened the store and showed a few saris but they asked for expensive ones. A few minutes later, another couple walked in and asked for dress materials. Attending to four people in her small store proved a bit difficult for Leena but she carried on.

The woman who came first started asking about sari prices. As Leena attended to her, the second couple asked to be shown some more designs. Both the parties spoke Telugu but Leena didn't know a word. The "customers" then spoke broken English. A while later, another person walked in and asked for some saris. Leena had to attend to all of them at one go. But strangely, none of them bought anything and walked out one after another.

Leena got tired and started to put the saris back into the racks. Just then, she realised a few saris were missing. She immediately checked the CCTV footage of the store and was stunned to see a woman with her husband stealing the saris and hiding them in her body. Cameras at a neighbouring building later showed all the five getting in a van and driving away. Leena quickly joined the dots and figured they were a gang. She filed a police complaint.

A police officer said the gang appeared to be new to Bengaluru as they drove a car with the registration number AP 15/DL 7477. "We have opened a case of cheating and theft and are searching for them," the officer added.