Despite various efforts, the Police are yet to crackdown on an active group of men who tactfully rob people of their valuables.
The group is on the prowl in city and their presence is known with at least one case of robbery using attention diversion techniques reported a month.
In one of the two recent incidents, a silver trader from Salem was robbed of a bag containing ₹92,000 and silver jewellery worth ₹2 lakh on Raju Chettiyar Street on June 24. As the person was standing in front of a shop with the bag, a youth in his 20s approached him and said that there was an insect on the collar of his shirt. The youth fled with the bag as the man kept it down to check for the insect. The accused is yet to be nabbed.
In the second incident reported on July 4, two men who posed as policemen in plain clothes duped a woman of 13 sovereign of jewellery in broad daylight near Sungam.
The duo, advised the 68-year-old woman to keep all the jewellery she was wearing in handbag as chain snatchers were on the prowl along the stretch. The men helped her in wrapping the jewellery in a piece of paper and put the same in handbag. But the woman found a piece of stone as she opened the wrap sometime later.
“Other common technique fraudsters use for diverting the attention is asking non-existing addresses and whereabouts of people for snatching valuables like chain. Littering currencies on ground is another common technique used to divert attention,” says an inspector. According to him, elderly people often fall victims to such tricks.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) P. Perumal said that incidents of grave crime involving attention diversion are seriously being dealt with and unsolved cases checked again. He said that special units formed to curb crime like pickpocketing and chain snatching are working towards cracking the network.
(Reporting by Wilson Thomas)
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