Eight men arrested for looting office, Rs 92 lakh recovered

Mumbai: The L.T. Marg police has arrested eight persons for allegedly looting an angadia (money transfer office) of Rs 1.13 crore in cash in Bhuleshwar, south Mumbai. The heist was carried out on May 29, when three masked men entered the office, drugged the workers, and fled with the cash. The probe revealed the role of an insider which ultimately led to cracking of the case.

One of the workers, Ripen Patel, was found to be helping the accused. Based on leads from him, the arrests were made from Ahmedabad, Goa and Uttar Pradesh.

On May 29, three masked burglars broke into the office in Shree Jee Bhawan Building, Bhuleshwar, and decamped with Rs 1.13 crore. Hours later when the workers woke up, they found the cash missing. Naveen Patel lodged a complaint with the L.T. Marg police station.

During the probe, the police found many discrepancies in the statements recorded by the workers. While one of the workers tried to identify the accused, Ripen Patel constantly tried to discredit the identification. Upon investigating Ripen’s life, the police found out that days before the heist, he was acting weird and asked a few friends over to the shop where he gave them a tour.

When the police inquired with Ripen about his friends, he finally blurted out the truth, saying that he was the mastermind who provided intelligence on the location of money.