Police busts gang of airport thieves

The Delhi Police have busted a gang of thieves who specialised in committing thefts at major airports across the country.

The police have arrested three persons — Dwarkesh Dodde Gowda (43), Ushakant (53) and Shanker (57), all hailing from Mumbai, and has claimed that this gang of inter-state thieves conned passengers at different airports in the country.

The hunt began on February 25, when an incident regarding theft of Rs 4 lakhs from a passenger, Sunil Kumar Totlani, was reported at the Terminal 3 of the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport.

With the airport already on a high-alert in view of the ongoing ICC World Cup and regular visits of VVIPs, the police constituted a special team to crack the case.

The team geared up its resources and developed information about such active criminals involved and arrested in the cases of similar modus operandi in the past few years.

The team was also provided CCTV footage by the private airport operator Delhi International Airport Ltd. (DIAL), sources said. After analysing old records, the police team zeroed in on the dossiers of above mentioned persons, who were found arrested for similar cases in 2008.
The footage provided by DIAL confirmed the involvement of the accused. Accordingly, the team started to get information about their activities through electronic surveillance.

The team arrested the accused from Sector-10, Dwarka Metro Station, near the Dwarka Court, where they had come regarding their earlier case.

The accused used to choose their targets at airports and while Dwarkesh diverted their attention, Shanker provided the cover to Ushakant. Then Ushakant would steal the valuables from their bags, police said.

The accused used to wear good formal clothes and keep the stolen money and goods in their luggage to avoid detection, police said.