A man made away with expensive watches from a store in the city using just one weapon – a smart suit.
The city police filed a case against the man, who gave his name as Ansar, for stealing watches worth more than Rs.3.5 lakh from a store at Oberon Mall on Sunday. Just a day before, Ansar had tried to steal money from a bank under a different name, but in the same fashion.
The police said Ansar had walked into a luxury watch store at Oberon Mall dressed in a smart suit. After browsing through the watches on display, he selected two expensive models and asked for them to be delivered to him at a top hotel in the city. He said he would pay for the watches on delivery.
The store employees arrived at the hotel to find Ansar waiting in the lobby of the star hotel. He took the watches from the employees and made away on the pretext of going to his room to get the money, according to the police. His image has been retrieved from a CCTV camera installed at the mall.
Ansar had made a similar bid to steal gold coins from a bank in the city just a day earlier on Saturday. He was almost successful too, but the attempt was foiled at the last moment by the bank officials’ vigilance. According to bank officials, the man came to the bank saying he wanted to buy gold coins to be presented as mementoes to participants of a meeting at a well-known hotel here.
He claimed to be an employee of the hotel and gave the bank officials a signed note which could be redeemed for the cost of the gold coins at the hotel reception. Bank officials arrived at the hotel with the gold, but were met by the man claiming to be Ram Nair before they could go to the reception. The man allegedly took a bank official carrying the coins upstairs into the hotel. “He said he was in a hurry and asked for a receipt saying he had paid the money. Our staff insisted that she could not give a receipt unless the money was paid,” said the bank official. The officer became suspicious and asked a colleague waiting downstairs to join them, when the man became agitated and walked off.
The bank officer later identified the man from the CCTV image from the mall which the police had obtained.
