A timely tip-off from an ex-convict has led to the arrest of five men who posed as income tax officers and escaped with Rs 43 lakh from a department store owner's house in Tiruvottiyur on May 22, police said on Tuesday. A hunt is on for three more persons involved in the crime.
The appearance and a scar on the lip of the kingpin R Murugan, which had been mentioned in the victim's complaint, helped them narrow down on the accused at a hotel in Sathyamangalam, police said. Initially, the suspicion was on the ex-convict who is bald but he revealed the involvement of Murugan as he was once part of the gang, police said.
Based on Murugan's confession, police nabbed his accomplices — N Jayavelu, 42, of Ernavoor, R Karthikeyan, 34, of Thanjavur, L Vijayendran alias Sasi, 32, of Kumbakonam and K Maharaja alias Raja, 23, — and recovered Rs 33 lakh and a Chevrolet Tavera (TN-07 AG 3887).
On May 22, four well-dressed men in a Tavera stopped before the house of P Kanagaraj, 55, at Ambedkar Nagar in Tiruvottiyur. They told the residents they were income tax officers and asked them to switch off their mobile phones. Later, they conducted a 'search' and left with the Rs 43 lakh they found saying it was not accounted for. They left behind 125 sovereigns of gold jewellery. Based on a complaint from Kanagaraj, a case was registered and special teams launched a hunt
"Murugan was involved in similar offences in Kangeyam, Kadaladi, Chengam, Polur, Karaikal and Nagapattinam as well as an offence in Purasaiwalkam in Chennai," additional commissioner of police (law and order) P Thamaraikannan told a press conference on Tuesday.
He had been staying in a rented house at Nehru Nagar in Ennore for the past one year and hatched the plan after his friend Jayavelu, employee of a firm located opposite the victim's house, informed him about Kanagaraj's financial transactions. "They (the gang members) kept tab on his movements before striking," said an investigating officer. After the incident at Kanagaraj's houce Murugan reportedly concealed Rs nine lakh in a bucket at his rented house in Ennore and fled to Sathyamangalam with Rs 1 lakh, a police officer said.
After being nabbed in connection with a similar offence in 2003, Murugan served a term in the Salem jail where he befriended Vijayendran alias Sasi, police said. "Murugan, a school dropout, always kept changing his accomplices to evade arrest," said a senior officer.
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