The Thampanoor police have arrested a three-member gang of Maharashtra natives on the charge of assaulting the owner of a money exchange establishment and decamping with ₹4.35 lakh.
In a statement here on Friday, District Police Chief (Thiruvananthapuram Rural) Balram Kumar Upadhyay identified the accused as Shashank Shyam Pawar, 29, and Ashwin Sharad Kale, 25, both of Nasik district and Sagar Girish Chitnis, 44, of Thane district in Maharashtra.
The incident occurred at a hotel on Manjalikulam road at Thampanoor on December 30.
The accused booked a suite at the hotel and asked Faisal who runs the money exchange firm to join them there.
They had convinced Faisal over the phone that Shashank was an employee of the hotel and wanted to exchange $6,000 for Indian currency.
When Faisal reached the hotel room with the money, Shashank told him that the dollars were kept in the reception and he would need to see the Indian currency first.
A suspicious Faisal asked to see the dollars first.
At this juncture, the second accused Sagar Girish entered the room and together, they beat up Faisal and fled with the money in a taxi that had been hired from the Thampanoor railway station taxi stand by Ashwin and was parked in the hotel portico.
Faisal immediately informed the Thampanoor police which swung into action immediately.
The police found out the licence plate numbers of the taxi from the hotel’s CCTV cameras, and managed to get the driver’s phone number too.
They called up the driver on the phone and informed him about the incident, without arousing the suspicions of the accused. On the Thampanoor police’s instruction, the taxi driver stopped the vehicle in front of the Kallambalam police station.
The accused who tried to make good their escape were arrested by the personnel of the Kallambalam police station and the local people. The stolen money was also recovered from them during the operation that led to the three arrests within an hour of the robbery.
The police found that the accused had committed similar crimes in other States in the country.
Remanded
The accused were produced in court and remanded in custody.
