Noida jeweller ‘hired’ snatchers, mortgaged stolen gold valuables
NOIDA: The Noida police have arrested four persons, including a jeweller, who had hired chain snatchers to loot people of their gold valuables. The arrested persons have admitted to committing around 150 chain snatching incidents in and around the district in the last nine months. Another member of their gang is at large.
The arrested persons have been identified as Dipankar Sarkar, Saurabh Yadav alias Goli, Saurabh Gupta alias Nikki and Shoaib alias Sam.
Sarkar, a native of West Bengal, runs a jewellery shop in Chaura village in Sector 22 of Noida.
The police said he had hired the other three accused to snatch gold jewellery in Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad.
The jeweller allegedly got the idea of running a chain snatching gang two years when a snatcher arrived at his shop to sell a stolen jewellery item. All the four accused had known each other for the last 1.5-2 years, the cops said.
Sarkar had allegedly invested in two motorcycles and weapons which the trio used to snatch chains and make off at different locations in Gautam Budh Nagar and Ghaziabad.
The police said that the accused used to handover the snatched gold valuables to Sarkar. He would then allegedly melt the stolen gold jewellery and convert them into different designs. The jeweller would then mortgage the gold at a reputed finance company as it is risky to sell stolen jewellery, the police.
“Sarkar had been running the gang of chain snatchers for over a year and a half. We are now trying to find out if there are more criminal cases registered against them. The accused used the stolen gold to take money on loan from a finance company,” said Ajay Pal Sharma, senior superintendent of police, Gautam Budh Nagar.
The accused had moved to Noida with his family from Delhi last nine years ago.
There is no previous criminal record of Sarkar while the other three have multiple cases regis- tered against him.
“We had got a tip-off that the four accused were meeting to hand over the snatched jewellery to Sarkar. The accused were arrested when they were in the process of handing over the jewellery. One of their accomplice is still at large and we have launched a manhunt for him,” said Anil Pratap Singh, station house officer, sector 58.
The accused were arrested near the Khoda tri-junction where Sarkar had gone to take the stolen jewellery from the trio. Police have recovered stolen jewellery worth Rs 8 lakh, three countrymade pistols of .315 bore and six live cartridges. Police have booked the accused for robbery, theft and under Arms Act.