This story is from January 16, 2017

Muthoot loot blueprint: Robbers zeroed in on RC Puram for young staff, heavy traffic

The successful execution of the gold heist at Muthoot Finance in RC Puram took eight months of meticulous planning by the inter-state gang of dacoits. Key accused Lakshman Narayan Mudhang chose the RC Puram branch as it had young staff, including 40% women, and heavy traffic movement outside.
Muthoot loot blueprint: Robbers zeroed in on RC Puram for young staff, heavy traffic
Representative image
HYDERABAD: The successful execution of the gold heist at Muthoot Finance in RC Puram took eight months of meticulous planning by the inter-state gang of dacoits. Key accused Lakshman Narayan Mudhang chose the RC Puram branch as it had young staff, including 40% women, and heavy traffic movement outside.
Lakshman, during his recces, used to stand outside the branch, watch the employees and note the surrounding commercial establishments.
However, Lakshman reportedly never entered the branch to get a first-hand experience of the infrastructure there, police sources said.
“After observing the profiles of the employees and the footfall at the firm, Lakshman and his team hoped that there will be a large quantity of gold and it might be easy to hoodwink police in tracking their vehicle due to the heavy traffic on the road unlike other places. At Parigi, the Muthoot branch is located in such a place where locals can easily tell the direction of their exit,’’ a senior Cyberabad police officer said.
On interrogation, the culprits said they were supposed to strike at Muthoot Finance on December 27, but deferred it by a day as Tukaram Gaikwad reached Patancheru in a bus which arrived late. By the time the other gang members picked him up at the bus stop and reached RC Puram branch, it was already 9.45 am and most shops on the ground floor had opened for business.
“They wanted to target Muthoot branch by 9.15 am so that there would be hardly any customers at that time and most shops nearby would be shut. As it was 9.45 am by the time they all assembled, they decided to defer the operation by a day and went to a dhaba in Jogipet. At night, they consumed alcohol and the next morning, they executed the operation as per their plan by posing as Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sleuths and decamped with the booty,’’ the officials said.

Cyberabad commissioner Sandeep Shandilya and joint commissioner of police Stephen Ravindra were impressed by the driving skills of Ganesh Pandurang Bhonsle alias Patil, who covered the distance between RC Puram and Hallakatta in less than 2 hours and 30 minutes. Police were still clueless about the Scorpio car used by the gang to get away and from where it was stolen. According to the latest information available, which was being verified, it was a vehicle stolen from Nagaland. The culprits outsmarted police all these years by altering the chassis number at eight different locations. For the RC Puram heist, they ensured the Maharashtra number plate had a registration certificate too.
The arrested are Lakshman Narayan Mudhang, Ganesh Pandurang Bhonsle alias Patil, Vijay Kumar, Kumar Pal Shah and Subhash. After robbery, they sent a portion of the gold bars to Shah, who in turn took them and gave them money. Shah, on interrogation, denied collecting the bars, but Subhash spilled the beans during interrogation. Lakshman, Patil and Vijay Kumar were remanded to judicial custody on Saturday.
Subhash and Shah were produced before the media on Sunday. Shah claimed he paid Rs 5 lakh for 239 gm of gold, but did not know that the bars were stolen property. The two might be produced in court on Monday.
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