KOCHI: Tamil Nadu native Jose Mathew alias Eramadu Jose, 50, was masquerading as a fish farmer in Perumbavoor. A meticulous four-month-long police probe, however, revealed that he had another sobriquet ‘Bermuda Kallan’ or the ‘Bermuda Thief’.
Jose got the moniker as he used to wear bermuda shorts during house break-ins. Officers say he had started robbery in his teens in the Nilgiris, and later moved to Kerala. Jose was allegedly involved in several theft cases in Wayanad, Kozhikode, Kannur and Malappuram, before arriving in Ernakulam. He was an ace at burglary and would leave hardly any evidence behind after break-ins.
The Bermuda Thief’s free run, however, was cut short in September, following an investigation into the theft of cash and 16 sovereigns of gold from a plywood company owner’s house at Vattakattupadi in Perumbavoor.
Senior civil police officer (CPO) Anish Kuriakose and CPO M M Sudheer of Kuruppampady Police Station analysed footage from nearly 100 CCTV units. Most were hazy, as there was heavy rain during the night of the crime.
However, the officers spotted a blurred image of a man wearing bermuda shorts, walking in the rain with a backpack. They also noted details of a car that he got into and sped away. Jose, an officer says, targeted only luxurious houses. “So, most of the thefts were in the houses near the main roads,” he adds. “Although his footage was caught on CCTV many times, we could not trace him. The modus operandi was the same in several burglary cases. Hence, we assumed that it was the same person behind them.”
Jose had been residing in a rented house at Iringole near Perumbavoor in the guise of a farmer. He used to identify target houses in advance. After recce, he would park his car a few kilometres away from the spot. Then, would walk all the way to the house. After the crime, he would coolly walk back to the car and get away. Jose used to be careful to not leave behind any clues, including fingerprints and footprints. He would somehow evade being captured in CCTV footage.
Even in the case that nailed him, the officers could freeze just a blurred image of him walking. He evaded all other cameras in the area. Later, however, officers spotted a similar figure in footage collected from areas a little away from the crime scene. One clip showed him alighting an auto-rickshaw and walking to a car on the roadside. “That was a breakthrough,” says an officer.
The investigation team zoomed in on the white car. Officers traced the address of its owner and found him at a house in a bushy area. On interrogation, he confessed that he was, indeed, the ‘Bermuda Thief’ who was accused in about 50 theft cases.
Officers seized weapons and tools, such as a drilling machine, that he used for breaking into houses. An officer adds that the local residents never suspected him as he “seemed to be a decent man”. After closing the case, Ernakulam Rural police chief Vivek Kumar revealed that Jose had been involved in thefts in the area for the past seven years. Notably, state police chief Anil Kant bestowed excellence awards on Kuruppampady Inspector M K Sajeevan, and CPOs Anish and Sudheer.
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