PATNA: The Bihar police from Vaishali, on Sunday, foiled a series of large-scale gold heists which were being planned across the country - in the offices of Mannapuram gold Finance Ltd, and Muthoot Finance Ltd in West Bengal, Jharkhand, and Bihar.
Acting on intelligence recieved from surveillance, a team of the Vaishali police, initially arrested two notorious gold-robbers which included a mastermind who's behind an inter-state network of gold-robbers from a village under the Lalganj PS limits.
The arrested criminals, identified as Dharamendra Rai and Birendra Sharma, both residents of Vaishali districts, were already wanted in connection with a major gold heist that was commited in Hajipur on November 23, 2019.
Vaishali SP Dr Gaurav Mangla, who led the raids, said, “Dharamendra Rai, wanted in 30 cases of crimes and Birendra Sharma, wanted in 11 cases of crimes, were nabbed from two different villages late night on Saturday in an operation against the inter-state gang.”
The arrested criminals disclosed where they had kept the gold which was looted from Hajipur-based Muthoot Finance Ltd.
“When the police along with the SF cops raided the hideouts, 8.45 kg gold besides illegal firearms, charas, cash (Rs 1.50 lakh) and one Ecosport car were recovered,” Dr Mangla said adding that two women were also arrested on charges of keeping the looted gold.
At Lalganj-vasanta based house of Birendra Sharma, gold was kept hidden inside a defunct water hand pump.
He said that one of the two women belongs to Samastipur district while the second is a kin of arrested Birendra Sharma, who is the mastermind of busted inter-state gang of gold robbers.
“Rai and Sharma along with their other accomplices, who are absconding, had done recce around the offices of Mannapuram gold finance Ltd at Dumdum in Kolkata and Siliguri in West Bengal, Dhanbad in Jharkhand and Darbhanga in Bihar for committing another major gold-heists,” the SP said.
Earlier, the Vaishali police had recovered 9 kg looted gold and arrested some gold robbers of this inter-state gang.