Chennai man breaks into shops, steals expensive watches and phones; held

Chennai: Three expensive watches worth Rs 2 lakh, an Apple iphone valued at Rs 65,000, two other cellphones and costly dresses were recovered from a man who stole them from a posh mall here, hiding in the toilet and breaking into the shops after their closure.

Arun Sasi (33), a native of Kottayam in Kerala, was nabbed yesterday by a special team which scrutinised CCTV footage from Express Avenue mall here, police said today.

Earlier, managers of a retail showroom and a watch store had filed complaints of dresses and expensive wristwatches going missing from their shops, police said.

The video footage revealed that the same person had broken into both shops following which a probe was launched, police said, adding, the IMEI numbers of the missing mobile phones were also traced, which led to the suspect.

Interrogation of Sasi revealed that he hid in toilets and other areas in the mall less frequented by others and later broke into the shops using a set of tools, they said. Sasi was later remanded to custody.