Cops recover Rs. 20 lakh cash, seize two vehicles, four mobile phones from them

Mysore/Mysuru: Saraswathipuram Police have arrested two conmen, who had duped a city engineer of Rs. 30 lakh by promising him to give gold beads but had given him fake gold beads instead.

The arrested are Bheema alias Dyna and Arjun alias Marwada, both residents of KRS. The Police have recovered Rs. 20 lakh cash and have seized a Royal Enfield (KA-11-EF-8764) bike, a Honda Dio (KA-11-EN-9651) scooter and four mobile phones used for the crime.

DCPs Dr. A.N. Prakash Gowda and Geetha Prasanna, K.R. Sub-Division ACP M.S. Poornachandra Tejaswi and City Crime Branch’s V. Mariyappa supervised Saraswathipuram Inspector R. Vijaykumar, Kuvempunagar Inspector G.C. Raju, CCB Inspector Jagadish, K.R. Sub-Inspector C.N. Sunil and staff Lingarajappa, Ramaswamy, Suresh, Basavaraje Urs, Raghavendra, Arjun, H.V. Manjunath, Nataraj, Manjunath, Puttappa, Kumar and Manju in the nabbing, recovery and seizing operation.

It may be recalled that the conmen, posing as construction workers, claimed that they got the gold while working near a temple in Tamil Nadu and wanted to sell it off at a lesser price, as they were in dire need of money. 

On July 4, victim Raghavendra had gone to T.K. Layout to purchase items for his home and it was here that a conman identified as Mohan approached Raghavendra seeking information about a bank. Mohan and told Raghavendra that he was a construction worker from Madhya Pradesh and while working at a site he had got some gold coins. 

Falling into the trap, Raghavendra asked Mohan to show the coins and readily agreed to purchase them and had asked Mohan to come to the same spot on July 11. When they met again on July 11 at T.K. Layout, Mohan told Raghavendra that his (Mohan’s) brother Arjun had the coins and was waiting near All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH) campus. 

Accordingly, Raghavendra and Mohan reached AIISH campus and met Arjun who handed over two beads from the chain and asked Raghavendra to get them checked. Raghavendra then went to a goldsmith who certified that the beads were genuine gold. 

After two days, Raghavendra called up Mohan to finalise the deal and picked up Mohan and Arjun from Doddakere Maidan and reached Lakshmikanthaswamy Temple on the Outer Ring Road. Here too, the accused handed over three beads from the gold chain and Raghavendra’s friend Jayakumar got them examined by a goldsmith. Jayakumar called up Raghavendra and told him that the goldsmith had certified that the beads were indeed made of gold. The accused then asked Raghavendra to get Rs. 30 lakh for the gold. 

On July 17, Mohan handed over the bag that contained the ornaments to Raghavendra and Raghavendra handed over the cash bag containing Rs. 30 lakh to Mohan. Raghavendra returned home and took the ornaments to a goldsmith and was shocked when the goldsmith said that the beads were fake, following which he lodged a complaint at Saraswathipuram Police.