According to police records, several criminal gangs with overseas roots have been operating in the city.
International criminals seem to have included Bangalore in their itinerary, exploiting the IT city’s cosmopolitan character.
According to police records, several criminal gangs with overseas roots have been operating in the city.
The Rs1.5 crore jewellery heist at a hotel on Richmond Road was the handiwork of such a gang. The gang, aware of the jewellery fair conducted in the city, planned their operation meticulously and implemented it on March 22, 2010.
The gang of Latin American nationals managed to flee the city with the jewellery, but the police were too fast for them. Investigators caught up with the gang at Goa’s Colva beach, while they were making arrangements to leave the country.
The CCTV cameras installed in Hotel Pride had helped the police in identifying and arresting the gang, including the girlfriend of the ring leader.
The gang’s leader Pedro Alejandro Maita Rodriguez, a freelance designer of jewellery, later confessed to the police that the heist was planned in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The joint commissioner of police (crime) Alok Kumar said that the heist showed the world that Bangalore has become a haven for international criminals.
“This is first time in the country that a meticulously planned burglary by an international gang was solved. Being a growing city, the incident suggested that other gangs from outside the country are also operating here,” he said.
Incidentally, similar burglaries involving international gangs have been reported from Egmore, Chennai and Mumbai. Those two cases were yet to be cracked.
Even as the city police managed to arrest the Latin American nationals, the menace of Nigerian fraudsters has been continuing unabated. News of credulous citizens falling prey to the diabolic designs of these unscrupulous elements have been reported frequently.
Incidentally, the victims’ greed to make a quick buck has been helping the cause of Nigerian fraudsters.
Citizens of Nepal and Bangladesh too have been operating in the city. The construction boom in the realty sector brought Bangladeshi nationals, legally as well as illegally, to the city in large numbers. Several of them formed gangs and carried out criminal activities in the city, hoping that they could cross the border back to their country with the loot.
Nepali nationals were once considered as loyal security guards. Not any more, thanks to several instances of crime in which some of them were involved.
The police were suspecting the role of a Nepali security guard in the Rs2 crore burglary at a watch showroom selling international brands near Richmond Road junction on June 18, 2010. The man has been missing ever since the incident.
Joint commissioner Kumar said that people should realise the pace at which Bangalore has been growing into a cosmopolitan city. “This is a place where job seekers and labourers land in search of employment. The growing city needs several workers. And migrants started pouring into this ‘land of opportunities.’ Then suddenly there was a slowdown. Many people who had lost work did not have any alternatives other than to stay back or return to their native lands. Some of those who had lost their jobs took to crime.”
In early October last year, the Yelahanka police arrested six members of a Nepali gang in connection with 45 theft cases across the city and its outskirts.
The police also claimed that Nepali gangs were involved in circulating Indian currency notes in the city.
Bangladeshi nationals posed another headache to the police, by pretending to be natives of West Bengal. On July 23, 2009, seven Bangladeshis were nabbed by Varthur police in connection with a dacoity in Balagere village. The arrests revealed that several Bangladeshi nationals were staying in the city without valid documents.
Besides these immediate neighbours, African nationals were also involved in criminal activities. Several persons from African countries were arrested, mostly for drug peddling. Tightened security measures in Chennai has been cited as the reason for drug pedlars making Bangalore a transit point.
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