VIJAYAWADA: Machilipatnam Central Crime Station (CCS) police on Tuesday arrested a notorious thief and recovered 36 mobile phones worth Rs 2 lakh from his possession on Tuesday. According to the CCS police, Jandhyala Gharshana Rao (21) is a habitual offender and has many theft cases registered against him at Inaguduru police station.
Earlier, Rao used to steal bikes and he was sentenced to one year in jail. After coming out of jail, Rao again started committing thefts. His modus operandi is to steal mobile phones from showrooms pretending to be a customer and sometimes he barges into houses in isolated colonies and snatch phones. With as many as 20 mobile thefts reported in Machilipatnam alone in the month of June, Machilipatnam DSP Mahaboob Basha formed a CCS team to solve the mystery behind it.
As part of the investigation, the team collected the data of all the cases reported. From the CCTV footage collected from four shops, CCS police zeroed in on one person and launched a manhunt to nab him.
Acting on a tip-off, CCS police nabbed Gharshana Rao when the latter came to sell his stolen mobile phone.