Gold jewellery theft gang busted

Rourkela: The Odisha police busted an inter-State gang, which was duping gullible persons of their gold in the name of cleaning those valuables, and arrested nine persons. While investigating a theft complaint lodged on September 19 at Sector-7 police station in Rourkela, the police busted the gang and recovered 103 grams of stolen gold, three motorcycles, seven mobile phones and other materials from the accused, a police officer said on Tuesday.

The arrested persons belong to Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha and are aged between 30 and 42 years, he said. The gang members introduced themselves as agents of a well-known private company, offering to clean gold ornaments free of charge, said Brijesh Kumar Rai, DIG of police, Western Range. While pretending to clean the ornaments, the accused used to divert the attention of the house owners and disappear with the gold ornaments, he said. The members of the organised gang were operating in small groups of two persons and staying in a rented house in Gopabandhupali area under Plant Site police station, Rai said.

Since 2021, about 27 such cases with the same modus operandi have been reported in Rourkela police district. This gang was found involved in 21 cases, he said.