Hyderabad: While the police tries to keep a tab on “local receivers” of stolen jewellery, chain-snatchers dispose their loot to receivers who often travel with them from other cities, making the job of the cops that much more difficult.
According to sources, receivers sometimes travel with chain-snatchers to whichever city they go to. They stay in hotels or lodges and accept the “snatched” property immediately after the offence. Police fails to arrest the criminals during vehicle checks at city borders or roads as they cannot find the stolen property on them.
Most of these receivers travel by flights or trains and buy gold from snatchers at 50 per cent less than market price. After a couple of offences, one of the snatchers travels by public transport to the lodge where the receiver is staying.
These gangs also bring their bikes to the cities by train, said sources.
They said that the gangs that follow this modus operandi come to Hyderabad from Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Maharashtra.
“These receivers are in fact the middlemen between a snatcher and big jewellers from northern India or Maharashtra. They will constantly be in touch with the snatchers, who meet them (to hand over the stolen property) after a snatching or after a series of snatchings in a day,” said source, who is a former offender.
After the gold is handed over, either the snatchers’ counterparts in their native town are paid or the money is transferred to bank accounts.
“The receiver can travel on domestic flights concealing the gold in his luggage since there are rare chances of frisking and detection in domestic terminals. Few also travel by trains,” the source said.
It’s usually very difficult to recover the entire stolen property even if the snatcher is arrested since he doesn’t divulge information about the ultimate receiver of the jewellery.
While cops have tapped city-based receivers earlier, they are still clueless about the receivers in Maharashtra and North Indian cities. Police says the gangs from Maharashtra and other places usually have a short stay in Hyderabad.
“They bring their bikes on trains, park at a busy bus or railway station, and strike at odd hours. They leave the city two or three days after committing a series of offences. They travel to another destination like Bengaluru or Chennai via train,” said LB Nagar DCP Tafseer Iqbal.
