A special police team of the Vijayawada police Commissionerate has cracked the sensational broad daylight snatching case of R. 7.99 lakh from a person on the Bandar Road that occurred on November 14, 2013, with the arrest of a four-member inter-State gang. The arrested include Gogula Girikumar (28) and Mutyala Satish (27) from Chittoor, Banala Ramesh (38) and Peetla Daivyakumar (48) from Tamil Nadu border areas. The gang had been involved in about 24 such offences under 10 police stations in Vijayawada since 2011, and the estimated amount stolen or snatched is about Rs. 40 lakhs. The gang members were arrested when they tried to convert the stolen money to the tune of Rs. 32.83 lakh into gold ornaments. The cash and two bikes used by the gang have been seized by the investigating team.
According to the Assistant Commissioner of Police (Special Branch) D.V. Nageswara Rao, there are many such gangs operating from the border areas and the police started the investigation by focusing on a few of them.
There was a similar offence in the September, 2013, when an amount of Rs. 7.7 lakh was snatched from a person as he came out of the HDFC Bank on the Bandar Road.
“The modus operandi was the same. The gang was following the attention diversion method to snatch cash bags from those coming out from banks or stealing from scooter or car boot space,” said Machavaram Crime Inspector and member of the special team I. Gopala Krishna. According to the ACP, an old arrest warrant of 2008 had been pending against Girikumar and Ramesh.
