Bought car, treated parents, paid off debt: How thieves spent ₹2.4 cr loot

NEW DELHI: Aparna Ruth Wilson, 30 and her husband, Naresh Kumar Sagar, 31, stole jewellery and cash worth ₹2.45 crore from the Amrita Shergil Marg residence of actor Sonam Kapoor’s husband Anand Ahuja over 11 months and sold them to a goldsmith Dev Verma, 41, and used the money to pay off their debt, cover treatment cost of their parents and buy one second hand i-10 car, police said on Thursday — a day after the three were arrested for the theft.

Officers of the crime branch, who nabbed the three suspects, said they have recovered ornaments and diamonds worth ₹1.25crore from the possession of the three suspects.

Special commissioner of police (crime) Ravindra Yadav said the crime branch arrested Wilson and Sagar, an accountant, who conspired to stole the jewellery and cash were arrested on Wednesday.

“We have also arrested the goldsmith (Dev Verma), who purchased the stolen articles, and recovered the stolen ornaments from his possession. The recovered items include 100 diamonds, six gold chains, six diamond bangles, one diamond bracelet, two tops, one brass coin and one Hyundai i-10 car. The approximate value of recovered articles has been determined ₹1.32 crore,” he said.

Yadav said Wilson is native of Lucknow, and she passed a diploma in nursing from Prayagraj in 2013. “She worked as a nurse at a hospital in Dehradun till 2015 before shifting to Delhi, where she took up a job at a private nursing home in Pashchim Vihar. In the interim, she worked at several local nursing homes and hospitals, before getting a job at a big private hospital in city. In 2017, she got married to Sagar, who she met on Facebook,” the special commissioner said.

In 2020, Sonam Kumar’s mother-in-law was admitted to the same hospital, Yadav said. “The hospital deputed one nurse, Premlata, for taking care of her. After some days, Premlata informed her friend Wilson that the Ahuja famover ily was looking for one more nurse to look after her at their house in New Delhi. Wilson has been visiting the Ahuja residence since March 2021. During her visits to the house, she observed that a lot jewellery and cash was kept in an almirah. One day, she told her husband about it and the couple conspired to steal the jewellery and cash. Sagar asked her to steal one ornament at a time so as not to alarm the house owners,” Yadav said.

The special commissioner said Wilson used to steal ornaments and cash after giving sedatives to the patient from whose room she stole the jewellery. “The theft went on for nearly 11 months. Wilson used to hand over the stolen articles to her husband, and he sold them to jewellers and other persons. With the money acquired these months, the couple paid off their debt, covered expenses on their parents’ medical treatment, and also purchased one second hand i-10 car,” he said.

Rohit Meena, the DCP (crime), who led the operation, said that Sagar belongs to Rustam Nagar in Moradabad district of UP. “He did his B.com from Chandausi and MBA from a college in Meerut. In 2015, he met Wilson on Facebook and they got married in 2017. Sagar has confessed that he sold the stolen jewellery at different shops in south Delhi’s Kalkaji. While the owner of one of the shops has been arrested, the others are at large. Our team is raiding their possible hideouts,” he said.

Meena said that Verma has confessed to have bought the stolen jewellery from Naresh. He said he used to pay him both in cash and online. “Many valuable articles were recovered from his shop in Kalkaji. He has also told the police that several others ornaments that he had bought from Sagar were smelt to make jewellery,” Meena said.