Less than a fortnight after he stole a businessman’s bag and returned it after siphoning off more than Rs.4 lakh by using his debit and credit cards, the 34-year-old culprit was arrested by the Bhayandar police from Faridabad district in Haryana. The high-profile thief identified as Twinkle Arjun Arora (34) turned out to be a qualified engineer who is suspected to have committed crimes after losing lakhs of rupees in betting on cricket matches.
The unusual case of theft-cum-cyber fraud was reported from a private turf in Bhayandar(west) where the businessman identified as Amit Agarwal who runs a courier agency had gone to play cricket in the tournament organised by his housing society last week. The bag containing his wallet, credit/debit cards, mobile phone, Aadhaar card and Rs.1,000 cash which he kept near the boundary line of the playground went missing. After a futile search, he dialled his own number from his friends’ mobile phone. The person on the other end promptly received his call and claimed that he had mistakenly taken the bag and would come and return it within 30 minutes. An unidentified person arrived at the spot in an auto-rickshaw with the bag only after three hours. The complainant thanked him after finding all the contents in the bag, including the cash intact. However, a few hours later, the complainant was shocked to learn that the password lock of the mobile phone had been changed. He then checked his email account and found that Rs.4.04 lakh had been siphoned off from his credit and debit cards.
CCTV footage scanned to reach to the accused
After receiving the complaint, the police scanned closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras installed at the crime scene in Bhayandar to as far as Andheri. The team spotted a suspect following which the core informer network and electronic surveillance was activated. After ascertaining the identity of the suspect, the police learnt about his presence in Haryana.
The team immediately left for Haryana and arrested Arora from Bhikam colony in Faridabad with the help of their local counterparts.
During interrogation, the police learnt about his involvement in seven other offences which he had committed in Andheri, Bandra, New Delhi and Pune using a similar modus operandi.
An offence under section 379 (theft) and 420 (cheating) of the IPC has been registered at the Bhayandar police station against Arora who had apparently received the call and assured to return the bag, so that the owner did not cancel or block the cards, giving ample opportunity to copy crucial data and execute the fraudulent transactions. Further investigations were on.
