Mumbai : A 27-year-old youth under custody made a jaw- dropping revelation to his interrogators on Saturday that he had made a whopping Rs 40 lakh in a short span of five years by stealing shoes.
Ibrahim Shaikh is in the custody of Matunga police in a house-breaking case. During interrogation, Shaikh revealed that his actual profession is stealing shoes and slippers from various places and selling these at Chor Bazaar, near Mohammed Ali Road.
“According to Shaikh, he has stolen thousands of pair of shoes and slippers from various areas of south Mumbai and from different religious places. He told us that he did not take even a single day’s break but continued to lift shoes and slippers everyday between 2003-08,” said Senior PI of Matunga police station B M Kakad.
Shaikh resorted to stealing shoes to make a quick buck as no one lodges complaints for the theft of footwear. Hence, these never got reported. According to the police, Sheikh claimed to have used up all the money for buying drugs.
His modus operandi was to randomly enter posh buildings in South Mumbai and steal the footwear left outside homes and other common areas and dispose those off in the grey market. He also frequented religious places in search of shoes. Shaikh was finally caught for housebreaking.
Matunga police is trying to locate the shops where he used to dispose off the stolen footwear. They are also trying to ascertain if similar gangs with the same modus operandi are active elsewhere in the city.
