Muthoot Mini Finance dacoity case: Five held

Bengaluru: Five men were arrested after Kumabalagod police cracked the Muthoot Mini Finance dacoity case. They have been identified as  Suresh Chandra (33), alias City Bank Nagaraj alias Bhaskar,  Mohammed Juniad alias Mahesh Poojari (42), K.R. Manjunath alias Gold Manju (38), Umesh alias Mahadev, (23), and Prasanna Shetty alias Girish, 35.

The gang members had entered the gold finance firm’s Mariyappanapalya branch on Outer Ring Road on October 20 posing as policemen. They kidnapped branch manager Nagendrappa under the pretext of interrogating him. Later, they returned and took away 4.3 kg of gold ornaments and cash.

“The gang members didn’t leave a single clue at the crime scene. They also destroyed the CCTV cameras and the DVR Box. Even efforts to track them by tracing the mobile phone signals fell flat as they all used SIM cards obtained with fake addresses. . It was a blind case, but a tip off from an informant helped us in cracking the case,” an official said.

The gang members had planned the dacoity three months in advance and watched all crime related programmes on news channels. “They had done a recce of over 20 banks and gold finance offices and targeted Muthoot’s Mariayappanapalya branch as it had less staff. They first purchased a pistol to commit the offence. Three days before the dacoity, they booked an Innova car from Mysuru to Dharmasthala. They threatened the driver at gun point and escaped with the vehicle. The stolen vehicle’s number was replaced with that of a vehicle of same make and same colour that was advertised on OLX. They avoided main roads where security cameras were installed,” the police said.

Based on credible information, one of the accused was held first and based on his information, the other accused were picked up. “Investigations revealed that the gang member were earlier involved in several cheating cases, where they contacted people offering personal loans. After getting documents and blank cheques, they cheated them by withdrawing money. They also set up offices for the same purpose, but vacated it within a month,” the police added.

The police have recovered gold, cash, a pistol, two cars, two two-wheelers and ten mobile phones worth over Rs 1 crore. The police have also seized the police uniform used by the culprits.