Four men from Tamil Nadu were arrested by the Bengaluru police on Monday after it was found that they were posing as Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials and stealing valuables from houses in south Bengaluru. The police arrested the suspects from Sankarapuram in Tamil Nadu and learnt that they targeted houses with senior citizens.
The gang's ploy unraveled after Sridhar, a resident of Jayanagar in the city, approached police officials alleging that gold ornaments and cash was stolen from his parents' house. There were no signs of forced entry in the house and Sridhar said that his parents had not left the house unattended leaving the investigating police officials at Tilak Nagar police station perplexed.
Police officials told TNM said they realised BBMP officials had visited the house to check for a sewage block after speaking to Sridhar and his parents. Police verified this information with the local BBMP office and found that no BBMP official visited the house for this purpose.
Police then realised that the gang operated with the same modus operandi targeting houses where senior citizens lived. While two persons would take the occupants of the house to the back asking questions about leakages, other gang members would enter the house and steal gold and cash, a police officer told TNM.
Sridhar told TNM that more than 1 kg of gold and cash worth Rs 25000 was stolen from his parent's house. Police are still in the process of recovering the valuables and are yet to share the names of the gang members.
Police said that the gang operated in a similar fashion in a number of cities including Tumakuru and Mangaluru apart from Bengaluru.