Seven arrested in Coimbatore, for stealing cash posing as Income Tax officers

The men went to the residence of a quarry owner claiming to be I-T sleuths, and made away with over ₹15 lakh in cash, police said

January 21, 2022 03:09 pm | Updated 03:09 pm IST - Coimbatore

The Kinathukadavu police on Thursday arrested seven men for their alleged involvement in a case, where a group of men posing as Income Tax officers, stole cash worth of over ₹15 lakh from the resident of Kinathukadavu in Coimbatore district on January 15.

According to the police, N. Praveen Kumar (36), R. Manikandan (37) and S. Mohankumar (30) were arrested near Kinathukadavu on Thursday afternoon. Having confessed to the crime, the accused allegedly said that they received assistance from four local residents from Kinathukadavu namely R. Sathish (36), A. Ramasamy (47), R. Anand (47) and D. Thyagarajan (42). Following this, the police arrested these four late on Thursday. Cash worth ₹3 lakh was recovered following the arrest.

The seven arrested accused were remanded in judicial custody on Friday, according to the police. Meanwhile, three accused – Matthew, Maheswaran and Faizal – are absconding and efforts to arrest them are on. The accused were booked under sections 120 B (Punishment of criminal conspiracy) and 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code.

P.R. Senthilkumar, Inspector of Kinathukadavu police station, said on Friday that Matthew, Maheswaran, Praveen Kumar, Manikandan and Mohankumar visited the residence of K. Panchalingam, a quarry owner, claiming to be I-T sleuths. These five, all residents of Coimbatore, zeroed in on the particular residence with the assistance of the four local residents and the accused Faizal was their driver.

The men had also taken the digital video recorder of surveillance cameras and Mr. Panchalingam’s mobile phone along with them before leaving. After this, the five accused split the stolen cash among them near Sundarapuram in Coimbatore and went their separate ways.

Praveen, Manikandan and Mohankumar had absconded to Kochi in Kerala, he said. They were planning to meet the four local residents who assisted them near Kinathukadavu when they were nabbed by the police, Mr. Senthilkumar said.

Matthew and Maheswaran are the prime accused in this case as the former allegedly organised the team and planned the sequence of events for around three months and the latter prepared counterfeit identity cards and other counterfeit documents, according to the Inspector.

A total of three special teams by Kinathukadavu police were involved in tracing the whereabouts of the accused in this case and the search operations extended till Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The total cash stolen by the gang would be ascertained only after the arrest of the remaining three accused, the inspector said.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.