'Cops' con women, man, rob gold jewellery worth ` 5 lakh in Mangalore, Udupi

In three separate theft incidents, gold ornaments worth Rs five lakh were stolen in the broad day light, by a team pretending to be police, in Mangalore and Udupi town on Thursday.

In the first instance which took place at 9.30 am, gold ornaments weighing 109 grams worth Rs 2.8 lakh were robbed from Lalitha, a Hindi lecturer at Government Women’s PU College in Car Street.

According to Mangalore North police, the lecturer had just entered into the college campus when a man introducing himself to be a police personnel asked her to come outside the college and meet the police officer in civil dress. As she came out, a man introducing himself as a police officer warned her against wearing gold jewelleries in the wake of increased theft cases in the surrounding area.

He insisted her to remove jewelleries, failing which he threatened of imposing a penalty of Rs 2,000. Believing his words, frightened Lalitha, removed her jewelery.

The thief in disguise of police officer asked her to give the jewellery and the handbag as he claimed that he would only put the jewelleries safe inside the bag and then return her.
By the time he returned her the bag, he had trickily stolen all the jeweleries without her knowledge.

It was only after the lecturer went inside the college and opened the bag that she realised her Karimani weighing 85 grams and two gold bangles weighing 24 grams were missing. She came out of the gate only to realise that the thieves had fled the spot.

35 grams stolen

In another similar incident, gold and diamond jewelleries weighing 35 grams worth Rs 90,000 were robbed from a senior citizen near Mangalore City Corporation office on the same day at 10.45 am.

In this incident too, the two imposters followed the same modus operandi to rob the ornaments.

According to Barke police, former Canara Bank employee Umesh P Pai from Bolur who was on his way to pay electricity bill at Mangalore One centre in MCC was stopped by two men pretending to be police. They warned Umesh Pai about a murder committed by thieves in the surrounding area for stealing jewelleries and asked him to be careful.

Like in the previous case, they pretended of lending their helping hand to Pai to pack his jewellery and immediately fled the spot with his diamond ring and a gold chain without his knowledge.

In Udupi

In the third incident in Udupi town, Bharati Bhat from Tirupati was cheated of her 5.5 pawan gold worth Rs 1.10 lakh by three thieves who came in guise of police. Bharati Bhat was stopped by three men near Woodlands hotel when she was returning after visiting Krishna temple.

According to police, the three men stole jewelleries from Bhat in the same way as in the above mentioned two cases. Bhat realised that her Karimani and two chains were missing only after she opened her handbag after reaching the Service bus stand.

The thieves racket is functioning in both the districts using the same modus operandi for a last few months. It could be recalled that a similar incident had taken place in Barke police station limits on March 23.