An Indian national has been arrested for making at least 200 flights to steal jewelery and other valuables from passengers’ luggage, Delhi Police said.
According to the police, the accused has been identified as 40-year-old Rajesh Kapoor, who traveled by air for more than 110 days for the thefts.
Delhi Deputy Commissioner of Police Usha Rangnani told a press conference at the capital’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Monday that the accused is now in police custody.
Ranganani said the man was arrested from Paharganj area of the city where he was allegedly keeping the stolen jewellery.
Police said they were preparing to sell the stolen goods to 46-year-old Sharad Jain. Ranganani said that Sharad Jack has also been arrested from Kerala Bagh area of Central Delhi.
He said that during the last three months, two separate incidents of theft were reported in different flights in India. He said that a special team was deployed at the Indira Gandhi International Airport to nab the involved persons.
On April 11, a passenger reported the theft of jewelery worth INR 700,000 (£6,685) while traveling from Hyderabad to Delhi. A similar incident took place on February 2 in which a passenger’s jewelery worth 2 million Indian rupees (£19,000) went missing while traveling from Amritsar to Delhi.
Ranganani said CCTV footage and flight records of Delhi and Amritsar airports were seen during the investigation. A suspect was subsequently identified who appeared on both flights in which the thefts occurred.
Despite initially providing a fake phone number, the suspect’s real phone was traced through technical surveillance, leading to his arrest.
Police say Kapoor confessed to being involved in five incidents and gambling with most of the stolen money. He has been implicated in 11 cases including theft, gambling and breach of trust. Among them, five incidents were committed at airports.
Police say they targeted specific passengers, especially elderly women. They also allegedly opted for domestic flights of major airlines like Air India and Vistara to cities like Delhi, Chandigarh and Hyderabad.
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During the journey, Kapoor would carefully search the overhead cabins and steal valuables from the handbags of intoxicated passengers.
A report in the newspaper Hindustan Times said that he would sometimes change planes to get closer to his target and take advantage of obstacles while boarding the plane to carry out his work without being noticed. .
To keep his identity a secret, he would book tickets in his deceased brother’s name, making it more difficult for airlines and authorities to identify him.
In 2019, a Times of India report mentioned a 37-year-old man named Rajesh Kapoor who was arrested at Delhi’s IGI airport for alleged fraud.
The report further states that Kapoor has been allegedly involved in several thefts at railway stations and IGI, airport. The report said that he was blacklisted for several flights which resulted in his air travel being stopped.
However, there is no clear information available to prove that the person arrested on Monday is the same person once morest whom the police registered a case in 2019.
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2024-07-14 07:27:11
