Notorious burglar linked to 200 cases, who gifted Rs 3 crore house to girlfriend, nabbed by Bengaluru police

Bengaluru: A notorious burglar known for outsmarting police in different states was tracked down by Bengaluru cops in 10 days, a record.

Panchakshari Sangayya Swamy, 37, is a man of many tastes and talents. A second-degree karate black belt holder, he had his first brush with the law when he was only 15. Back in 2003, he stole a laptop, and as the cliché goes, never looked back.

A native of Solapur, Maharashtra, he is believed to be involved in at least 200 house burglaries. He has targeted homes in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Gujarat, according to police.

However, Bengaluru didn't turn out to be a happy hunting ground for him. On January 9, he broke into a businessman's house in Maruthi Nagar, Madiwala, ransacked the place and fled with Rs 12.25 lakh worth of jewellery.

Acting on the businessman's complaint, Madiwala police reviewed 200 CCTV cameras and traced the suspect to Maharashtra.

When Bengaluru police showed the suspect's photograph to their Maharashtra counterparts, they identified Swamy in a jiffy.

Bengaluru police sat through an hour-long briefing to know Swamy's background. "Swamy’s criminal footprints were a revelation," an officer close to the investigation said.

After an eight-day operation in Maharashtra and Karnataka, police apprehended Swamy from the KSR Bengaluru station on January 19.

While a police team was hunting for him in Maharashtra, Swamy had reportedly come down to Bengaluru to burgle another home.

Swamy told the police that it was the first time that he was arrested in such a short span of time.

"He has such a reputation in Maharashtra that even the Mumbai crime branch was amazed that we arrested him in just 10 days," the investigator said.

According to police, Swamy had arrived in Bengaluru on January 7 and stayed with a cousin at Venkatareddy Layout in Koramangala. The next day, he took an auto and went on a recce of potential targets.

Police say Swamy chose homes with front and back doors, both opening on wide roads, so he can escape easily.

After burgling the house in Madiwala, Swamy stopped at a footpath in Koramangala, bought T-shirts and changed them at different locations to avoid detection.

Investigations showed that Swamy was jailed multiple times. He served a five-year sentence in Gujarat’s Sabarmati jail. In 2022, he was arrested by Mumbai police but secured bail the next year.

While Swamy is married and has a child, his Assamese wife has severed ties with him.

Firegun & moose to melt stolen gold

Swamy has a firegun and a melting crucible (moose) that he uses to melt stolen gold and sell it.

In 2016, before his arrest in Gujarat, Swamy built a Rs 3-crore house in West Bengal for his girlfriend, a bar dancer. He spent Rs 22 lakh on a large aquarium that he had transported on a truck from Maharashtra to West Bengal, police said.

Police also believe Swamy spent 15 lakh to date an actress for a day and spent Rs 6 lakh only on the hotel.