Hyderabad: Two persons who were arrested by the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) police in connection with a series of theft incidents in flights last month, were brought to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (RGIA) police station on a transit warrant on Saturday. Gold weighing 1,000 grams was recovered from their possession.
Rajesh Kapoor (40), a resident of Pahargunj in Delhi has been involved in 10 theft cases in the flights, of which 4 offences were committed in Delhi and 5 in Hyderabad. One case was yet to be registered at Vanasthalipuram police station.
NRI held at Hyderabad Airport for threat calls to Raja Singh
The modus operandi of Kapoor was that he used to travel in domestic flights like Delhi to Chandigarh, Amritsar, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, etc., and used to get flight tickets by producing different IDs in the name of Rishi Kapoor, Yashpal Kapoor, and Mahadev.
After entering the airports he would look for old women travelling in international connecting flights. He would observe that the women keeping their luggage close to them are most probably carrying valuables like gold and cash. He would then follow the targeted passenger, board the same flight, and when the passenger places her luggage in the cabin above the seat, he would put his luggage right beside the victim’s luggage in the same cabin.
Sometimes he would take both the luggage bags to his seats and open them, transferring the victim’s valuables into his bag. He would also open the victim’s bag in the cabin itself, and transfer the valuables into his bag.
After committing the theft, he would return to Delhi on the next flight to hand over the stolen property to his accomplice Dinesh Gupta, the accused number 2. In case Kapoor’s plan fails to get executed as planned, then Gupta would provide him with an air ticket from Hyderabad to another airport to perpetrate the next theft. However, he was arrested by IGI airport police on May 10.
On interrogation, it was found that Kapoor has travelled 200 times on flights in the past 110 days.
The arrest of the two individuals was done under the supervision of Cyberabad police commissioner Avinash Mohanty, DCP Shamshabad zone K Narayana Reddy, K Ram Kumar, additional DCP, ACP Shamshabad KS Rao, and was executed by RGIA police station CI Balraj, detective inspector of Shamshabad division Nageshwar Rao, and crime staff of RGIA police station.
