Mumbai: The LT Marg police arrested five men on Sunday for robbing ₹50 lakh cash from an angadia, a local courier used to deliver money.
According to the police, the victim, Yogesh Patel, 37, works in an angadia firm in Bhuleshwar. On Saturday when he was delivering ₹50 lakh cash, three people caught him by the collar and, pretending to be policemen, snatched his phone and made him follow them to a nearby hotel. The accused made him get into a car and sit between two of them in the back seat.
Patel told the police that when he resisted, one of the accused threatened him with a knife. The accused later snatched the bag containing money, drove to Kharghar in Navi Mumbai, and threw him out of the car telling him to leave Mumbai or they would find him and hurt him. However, Patel noted down the car’s number, borrowed a phone from a passing biker and informed his manager Sameer Patel about the incident, and filed a police complaint. Patel told the police he had been carrying 9,800 notes of ₹500, and 1,000 notes of ₹100, totalling ₹50 lakh.
The police tracked the car to Pune, and with the help of local police caught two of the accused, Ajay Lokhande, 32, Revansiddha Javale, 27. The two confessed to the crime and the police recovered the chopper knife and ₹26 lakh cash from them. Further investigation led the police to the other two accused Sagar Jadhav, 29, and Vikas Dabde, 36, from whom the police recovered ₹2 lakh cash. The fifth accused, Dilip Dhekale, 43, was caught at his residence in Thane, and when the police searched his house they found ₹96,000. According to the police, Dhekhale also had a press identity card and the forged identity card of a police constable from Thane.
The police have recovered ₹29 lakh and are trying to trace the remaining amount. The five accused have been booked under sections 204 (personating a public servant), 205 (Wearing garb or carrying token used by public servant with fraudulent intent), 140(2) (kidnapping or abducting), 309(4) (robbery), 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) along with relevant sections of the Maharashtra Police Act.