A fake abduction drama enacted by a greedy employee of a private hotel here has led to the busting of an international gold smuggling racket.
A native of Bangarpet, Arun Kumar (29), who acted as a ‘gold carrier’ for a Chennai-based gold smuggler Mohammed Masood and his associates, had staged an abduction and robbery drama soon after he landed at the Kempegowda International Airport last Monday. Armed with a diploma in hotel management, Arun Kumar is an assistant manager at a hotel in Yeshwanthpur.
Arun Kumar along with his associates, Harish and Santish ,worked for Masood, who lured people by offering free foreign trips and pocket money in return of smuggling gold biscuits for him. The trio often flew to Singapore to meet Masood’s contact and return with gold biscuits weighing 100 gram each. The consignment would be handed over to Masood at the airport here, the police said.
However, after making a few trips, Arun Kumar hatched a plan to rob the consignment. As per the plan, Arun Kumar’s associates identified as Dwarakanath and Ramamurthy confronted Arun Kumar, Harish and Masood posing as cops and forced them to come for an inquiry. The duo threatened and robbed the valuables before dropping the trio at three locations.
Arun Kumar, who met Masood later, even filed a complaint with Kempegowda International Airport police but concealed information about gold biscuits, but complained that they were robbed of their laptops and Rs.13,000 in cash. Suspicious of the complaint, the police found inconsistencies in the versions of the trio on the sequence of events. A detailed questioning by the police not only led them to Arun Kumar’s associates but also exposed the gold smuggling racket, police said, adding that 8 gold biscuits weighing 100 gram each and Rs. 2.8 lakh in cash was recovered from them.
