Men pose as CBI sleuths, decamp with 40 kg gold from fin firm

Around 40 kg of gold ornaments and one lakh rupees were looted today at gunpoint from a leading financial firm in Sangareddy following a brazen heist by a gang of robbers who posed themselves as CBI sleuths and police officials, police said.
Four persons entered the Beeramguda branch of Muthoot Finance in R C Puram police station area around 9.30 AM, while one other waited outside it in a four-wheeler, they said.
"Around 40 kg of gold and Rs one lakh in cash were looted by a group of five persons. One of them introduced himself as a CBI officer to the staff and told them that there are reports that several people had converted their black money into white and kept their gold at the branch," Cyberabad Police Commissioner Sandeep Shandilya, who visited the crime scene, told reporters.

One of them was in the get-up of a traffic cop, he said.
They told the staffers they had brought a thief along with them who had kept his stolen gold booty with the branch and also claimed of having information about the "irregularities" in the currency exchange process in the wake of demonetisation.
Under the pretext of checking and investigating the records, they got the lockers opened from the staff. However, as soon as the staff realised that something was amiss, the gang members allegedly threatened them at gunpoint and made away with the gold ornaments, police said.

"We are in the process of finding the accused and verifying CCTV footage. Special teams have been formed to trace the absconding accused," Shandilya said.

He said the gang members mostly spoke in Hindi and English.
"One of them was dressed as a Sikh and introduced himself as Surjit Patel. He carried a short firearm, likely to be a pistol which was covered with a holster (made up) of a jungle patched cloth. Another man was wearing a black mask and he searched the chests with other offenders who were wearing jungle caps and grabbed the booty," the top cop said.
Before fleeing in the four-wheeler, the robbers damaged CCTV cameras and took away the CCTV records and hard disk with them, said another police officer.

Police said they have intensified search operations to nab the robbers and vehicle checking is being taken up at different exit and entry points including Telangana- Maharashtra and Karnataka state borders.