6 days ago
BoM heist: 13 arrested, over 3kg gold recovered, insider job suspected
Patna: A total of 13 individuals were arrested in connection with a robbery at a Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) branch in Samastipur town on May 7, police said on Monday. The special task force's bank and jewellery cell, under the supervision of the police headquarters, also recovered 3kg gold ornaments, two country-made pistols, six live cartridges and one car from the accused.
The investigation revealed that the robbery was facilitated by insiders — Abhishek Gupta, a bank-deputed gold-checker, along with Ramesh Jha, a loan agent — who have been apprehended for intentionally inflating the value of gold and providing information to the criminals, police said.
Seven unknown criminals had robbed the bank branch of Rs 15 lakh cash and 9.75kg gold ornaments. A case was filed under Section 310(2) of BNS and Section 27 of Arms Act at Town police station.
According to a release, two accused — Deepak Kumar, a resident of Samastipur, and Karamveer Kumar from Vaishali — were identified on a CCTV camera within 24 hours. "Among those arrested, one Ravish Kumar, who financially supported the crime, was nabbed, while trying to escape from Ghaziabad. Karamveer was later arrested from Munger. He, along with Ravish, had previously planned to rob a jewellery shop in Samastipur on February 24.
Based on the information provided by the arrested duo, one Bittu Kumar was arrested from Bidupur police station area with 600 grams of gold ornaments. Further three more people — Deepak, Anuradha Devi and Fulparri Devi — were arrested with 447 grams of gold jewellery. Later, one Akhilesh Rai and his wife Savita Devi were arrested from Ghaziabad. Based on their information, one Harish Chandra Rai was arrested with 1.6 kg gold ornament," read the release.
All the arrested individuals have extensive criminal histories, including dacoity, Arms Act violations and robbery, across Bihar and a few in West Bengal.
