CHENNAI : Who says crime doesn’t pay? It did for 11 mobile phone snatchers for over two years until the long arm of the law caught up with them.In a major crackdown, the gang from Andhra Pradesh, who were operating within the city, were nabbed recently.The investigation officer said S Ravi (27), the kingpin, arrived in the city a few years ago and was living in Avadi, where he worked as a carpenter. Some two years ago, he brought 10 men from his State and trained them on how to snatch mobile phones from unsuspecting victims. The training was held in Sholavaram.
The police got a whiff about the gang after two members were arrested within Flower Bazaar police limits for a mobile phone snatching incident some two months ago. During an investigation, they revealed that they were hired by Ravi to snatch mobile phones. He paid each man `6,000 every Monday. That’s not all. They were given offs on weekends. Their job was to hand over at least 50 phones every week to him. The gang mainly targeted passengers at bus stops in T Nagar, K K Nagar, Mambalam, and railway stations within the city. The duo was later released on bail.
The police kept an eye on their movements and nabbed them while they were handing over phones to Ravi. The rest of the gang members were also picked up from a house in Sholavaram. They were identified as - V Nani (19), M Ragulravi (29), S Yesu (25), V Durga (24), T Sayee (24), D Seenu (28), K Rajesh (21), A Mahesh (19), J Venkatesh (27) and J Raju (27). According to the police, Ravi used to collect the phones every Friday and returned to AP, where he will sell them off to a dealer.