Police Identify Leader of Gang Behind Hyderabad Gold Heist

Hyderabad: Telengana police have identified the leader of the gang of robbers who struck at a Muthoot Finance branch here posing as CBI officials on December 28 and left with 40 kg of gold.

A Top police source told CNN News18 that they have identified the person who was the leader for the crime and the driver of the getaway vehicle.

The culprits are under discrete surveillance and arrests are likely to be made soon.

The police managed to trace out entire movements of the gang from 23rd till 28th December from 35 CCTV cameras at various locations.

According to police, CCTV footage showed that a Scorpio and a bike were used in same route to do recce on December 23rd. They stayed the night in a dhaba 10 km away from the crime scene and left on December 24th.

After recce, both vehicles moved towards Wadi side. Again on December 25th, mixed gang of 6 people moved in from Wadi area. On December 26th, all of them together recced the area. They thoroughly checked the different routes and returned back to Wadi.

On December 27th, the gang started moving towards the branch but stopped after seeing a police patrol vehicle. They took shelter in the dhaba and on December 28th left for the Muthoot Finance office at RC Puram at 8am.

CCTV footage also revealed that the Scorpio was using a "MH" number plate, then used Karnataka number and finally 5 km from the scene on the day of the offence they changed to an “AP” number plate.

After the heist, the bike stayed 2 km ahead of the Scorpio and piloted it to Wadi area. According to police, the gang used a cell phone two times to maintain contact till they crossed state borders. From there, they left for Mumbai by train and left their vehicles.

Cyberabad police commissioner Sandeep Shandilya told CNN news 18 that culprits will be soon arrested. "The leader of the crime was dressed like a Sikh and CBI officer. He gathered five other people into a gang in Mumbai. All the six are inter-state hardened criminals who may have met in jail and then got together We will soon arrest all of them."