BARIPADA: Morada police in Mayurbhanj district has busted an inter-state transformer theft racket and arrested three persons.
The accused, Sk Nurani (24), Sk Mokbul (20) and Sk Rizwan (22), all residents of the Rairangpur area, were held on November 7.
Morada IIC Sumeet Kumar Soren said on Tuesday the accused were involved in transformer thefts reported from different parts of Mayurbhanj, Balasore and Keonjhar districts in Odisha, besides Jharkhand and West Bengal. Police found evidence linking the trio to more than 30 cases of transformer theft, police said. Police suspect that more than 16 persons are involved in the racket.
The arrests came after TNIE highlighted the theft of nine transformers in 17 days in Baisinga in its October 28 report, titled “9 transformers stolen in 17 days, cops clueless, consumers suffer”. The accused allegedly targeted transformers installed along roadsides, stealing units ranging from 16 KVA to 50 KVA for their copper coils.
They would extract the copper and other valuable components and sell them to local scrap dealers for up to `16,000 per transformer.