JHARSUGUDA: A robbery reported by an executive of a private cash management company in Badmal here turned out to be a pre-planned conspiracy with police arresting four persons and recovering Rs 4.89 lakh of the allegedly misappropriated money on Saturday.
The accused are Pinku Suna (33) of Jharsuguda and Rabi Suna (29), Anand Tandi (35) and Manoj Nanda (22) of Sundargarh district. Pinku worked as an executive in the company and was entrusted with collecting cash from customers in Jharsuguda and depositing it into designated bank accounts.
According to police, the agency concerned on Thursday filed a complaint stating that Pinku had been robbed of cash collected from clients while he was going to deposit it on August 18.
Based on the complaint, police launched an investigation and during interrogation, Pinku claimed that he was robbed of Rs 5,38,697 on state highway-10 near the Toyota showroom of Badmal. However, technical analysis, CCTV footage and local intelligence exposed inconsistencies in the robbery narrative.
Police said the incident was part of a conspiracy allegedly planned in Rourkela on August 16 and executed on August 18. Pinku allegedly emerged as the key conspirator and his relative Rabi reportedly roped in Anand to carry out the crime. The trio staged the fake robbery while Manoj allegedly provided information about relevant cash collection locations.
Jharsuguda SP Gundala Reddy Raghavendra said prime accused Pinku was involved in online gambling and had lost a substantial amount of money, following which he planned to deceive his company. While some of the misappropriated cash was hidden at Anand’s residence, the remaining amount was recovered from Pinku. Police found that he had spent the rest of the money on online gambling.
The SP said investigation is continuing to trace the remaining amount, establish the complete financial trail and identify other persons involved in the conspiracy.
Notably, Anand was found to have been convicted for 14 years in a murder case. Criminal antecedents of other accused are under verification, said police.
