Titan heist solved - TN Police arrest driver ...

I had posted earlier in great detail of the heist near Sriperumpudur and on similar incidents…. Today TOI reports that TN Police have successfully cracked the heist – have arrested the van driver and his friend…. ‘insider involvement’ – is the reason for many crimes and this also is reported to be one……….

Here is the report of Times of India.  : Cops crack 4cr gold heist, arrest van driver, friend Hunt On For One More; Jewellery Recovered From Water Sump TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai: Police on Monday cracked the 4 crore gold jewellery heist in Sriperumbudur with the arrest of van driver T Satish Kumar and his friend G Murugan. It turns out that the driver had helped the prime accused, Nagaraj, make a duplicate key of the vehicle, and gave him details of the journey. The two residents of Hosur were remanded in judicial custody and a hunt is on for Nagaraj. The jewellery, belonging to Titan Industries, was recovered from a water sump in Nagaraj’s house.

On Monday, Satish Kumar was returning in the van from the Titan plant in Hosur along with supervisor Rajendran and guard Subramani when they stopped at a motel on the Chennai-Bangalore highway for lunch. As per the plan, Nagaraj drove away the vehicle using the duplicate key. When Kumar and Rajendran came back from lunch, the van was gone.  Rajendran informed his superiors who alerted police. The van was found four km away minus the gold. After questioning the residents of the village where the vehicle was found, investigators turned their attention to the three men who had brought the jewellery from Hosur.

“Satish Kumar said his friend Nagaraj was involved in making duplicate keys in Hosur. We made inquiries and found that a man named Murugan was close to Nagaraj and we caught him,” Kancheepuram superintendent of police C Vijayakumar said. Based on Murugan’s confession, police went to Nagaraj’s house but he had gone to Mysore. Police found the stolen jewellery in a water sump. The gang planned to pledge the jewellery with pawnbrokers in Mysore. Satish Kumar, a van driver with Sequel Logistics Limited that transports jewellery from Titan’s Hosur plant to its showrooms, and Murugan, a parttime driver in the same firm, told police Nagaraj planned the heist. He promised to buy them 4-5 vans to start their own business.

 The two arrested, along with Nagaraj and two others, a man from Madurai and a man from Karnataka, conducted a recce on August 8, while the same team brought jewellery from Hosur. On Monday, they put their plan into action. The gang members, barring Satish Kumar, followed the van in a Tata Indica car and a Toyota Innova. When the van stopped outside the motel around 2.30pm, Nagaraj, who had a duplicate key, got in and drove away. The Indica in which Nagaraj came returned to Hosur.   The van was abandoned in an unused road at Vadamangalam village and the gang fled with the loot. They went towards Arcot and then turned towards Vandavasi on a state highway where there is no toll plaza. After midnight, they returned to Hosur through Tiruvannamalai.

 Nagaraj had been involved in a couple of robbery and house break-ins in Hosur and police are checking if the others were involved in any crime.

Insurance Policies exclude liability where the Insured or their employees are involved or are accomplices in crimes

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

22^nd Aug 2013.