JOIN USHeists in Hollywood style
The Colombian burglar gang that recently jumped bail used sophisticated technology, and a French military technique that enabled it to perform spectacular stunts.
Top police officers investigating the case told Metrolife training in parkour skills helped the gang scale high walls, and jump from the terrace of one building to the next. The gang is suspected in 31 burglary cases, but is on trial in only one.
Several Colombian gangs have come to Bengaluru to commit crimes. They are smart, and use advanced tools to pull off their heists, and know how to erase all evidence. The Colombian gang the Bengaluru police are now trying to track down has been in Bengaluru since 2019. However, its leader landed here in 2016. It carried out a series of burglaries, including one at the HSR Layout house of a top bureaucrat.
The gang went to work equipped with a laser cutting device, phone jammers, pepper sprays, knives, drills, flame guns, and head-mounted torches, a top police officer told Metrolife.
The gang has put in years of practice to learn parkour. Physical agility helps it get around, while familiarity with new gadgets and gizmos helps it commit crimes quietly and with the least fuss.
The gang uses mobile jammers to make sure people in the houses they burgle can’t call the police. To avoid leaving a call trail, the burglars use walkie talkies. Police say tracking them is not easy. The gang has no record of killing or injuring anyone. “They just want to escape with the booty and live it up,” an investigator says. Colombian gangs never venture out without adequate preparation: they familiarise themselves with the location thoroughly. “Where Indian burglars take 10 minutes to jump from one building to another, they take just 10 seconds. They wear special, padded shoes that leave no footprints,” says the officer.
Most advanced
Bhaskar Rao, former city police commissioner, in whose tenure this gang was nabbed, says that he has never seen such sophisticated use of technology for crime. “They use GPS equipment, wireless devices, advanced gas cutters and a host of modern communication equipment. Some of these gadgets are brought from Colombia. One will have to study their offences back home but this will require a long procedure,” he says.
T Suneel Kumar, chief of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), remembers how his men had nabbed a similar Colombian gang when he was the Bengaluru police commissioner. “They survey houses before they break in. They always target multi-storeyed houses and posh homes and always gain entry through the first floor,” explains Suneel Kumar.
They target houses that are empty or with people who are asleep. Well-dressed foreigners are usually not seen with suspicion in a cosmopolitan city with a floating software and business crowd. “Even if they are sent to prison they are there for hardly two days. The only thing we can do is to impound their passports. But there have been instances where they have made bogus passports and escaped,” says Suneel Kumar.
The gangs pay high rents and bribe their way through government agencies to stay on illegally and indulge in crime, he says. “We can never detain a foreigner national without sufficient evidence because we have to answer the courts and it becomes an issue between two countries,” says a senior officer who is currently investigating the case.
In Bengaluru, old crimes are taking new, more hybrid forms. “The basics remain the same. Cybercrimes have taken the place of conventional crimes. Technology has given rise to new methods,” the senior officer says.
How they were nabbed
The leader of the gang had been operating in Bengaluru since 2016. “This new gang arrived here only in 2019. The day we arrested them, they had planned to rob a bank. We had a clue. We kept a close watch and nabbed one of them, and he led us to the others,” a top police officer told Metrolife. Challenges were plenty. “They don’t talk even if the interrogation is intensive,” he says
What gang knows
Using bare hands and legs to climb walls.
Ability to jump across terraces and land safely.
Free running, using obstacles as props.
Parkour proficiency takes long years
Chaos Faktory in HSR Layout offers training in parkour and free running.
Delson Joy D’Souza, co-founder (Chaos Faktory), says it is the only centre in Bengaluru to offer such training.
Where did parkour originate?
It has French origins, and David Belle is considered the father of parkour because he promoted it. It is basically military obstacle course training. Parkour is about efficient movement. It challenges a person to think of how he can get from point A to point B in the fastest and most efficient way.
What does the training involve?
Running, climbing, sliding, jumping and rolling. You have to practise long
and hard to develop proficiency.
The form teaches you how to use your legs and arms and land from huge heights smoothly.
Is there an age limit?
Parkour training has no age limit. Safety and gradual progress are key. Safety is important—for example, how to land when it is raining. Progress builds when your fitness is good, and you have excellent leg strength. You can scale any height with practice.
How they went poof!
March 3: Gang of three, including a woman, arrested by a joint team of five police stations: Kothanur, Bagalur, Sampigehalli, Yelahanka Newtown and Vidyaranyapura. A total of 50 policemen involved in nabbing them.
March 3: Gang taken to Parappana Agrahara jail.
July 20: After 90 days in jail, gang gets bail. Jumps bail. Untraceable as of date.
Airports alerted
Dr Bheemashankar S Guled, deputy commissioner of police investigating the case, says, “The court has granted bail. The gang was to appear at the local police station at least once a week, but they haven’t turned up, and are untraceable.” He says that the police have issued a look-out circular (LOC). “They will be caught and detained if they try to escape through the ports or airports,” adds Bheemashankar.
What it uses
Special shoes
Trained for years in parkour, the gang uses well-padded shoes to jump to the ground. The shoes leave no footprints.
Walkie talkies
The gang uses walkie talkies instead of mobile phones. Police can’t track their calls.
Mobile jammers
The gang switches on mobile jammers during its heists. That way, even eyewitnesses can’t call the police. They would also cut the landlines of houses they break into.
Maps, GPS devices
Members recce and watch a neighbourhood closely before zeroing in on a house for a heist. Getaways are aided by GPS devices and maps.
Cutting tools
Besides pliers and haxablades, the gang carries expensive laser and gas cutting machines. It finds its way in the dark using head-mounted torches.
On screen
Parkour is celebrated in several crime and action films in Hollywood, most notably in Salt (2010), Casino Royale (2006), Freerunner (2011), Brick Mansions (2014). It is also featured in ad films and TV spots for popular brands.