The Delhi Police arrested three thieves, including a woman, who used to allegedly target businessmen and collection agents, the police said on Friday.
According to the police, around Rs 2 lakh in cash has been recovered from the so-called Gujrati Gang, out of the Rs 5 lakh stolen by them.
The accused were identified with the help of technical surveillance by the team of Police Station Kotwali, while they scanned footage from over 150 CCTV cameras.
Equipment like gold bangle cutter, jewellery weighing scale has also been recovered from their possession along with six stolen cell phones.
On March 6, a complainant informed the police about Rs five lakh cash stolen from him while he boarded an e- rickshaw which already had three women on board.
During the course of investigation, technical scanning was conducted and around 150 CCTV cameras were closely observed on the route of the rickshaw.
Consequently, an e-Rickshaw (without number plate) was identified in which the complainant was sitting.
The police could see three women already sitting on the e- rickshaw wearing a veil (Burka) and one male was sitting adjacent to the e-Rickshaw driver.
Since there was no registration plate on the e-Rickshaw and it was tough to identify the culprits, on continuous checking of CCTV footages, the best picture of the face of the driver of the e-rickshaw matched with the dossiers of accused persons involved in similar cases previously.
The driver was identified through technical surveillance, who was also found involved in a previous case of Police Station Pashchim Vihar, Delhi.
With intensified efforts and technical surveillance one person named Rohit of Raghubir Nagar was traced on March 23. During questioning, he disclosed that he was the one who used to give tip-off about those carrying money to his associates.
Later, two accused persons, including the woman, Pooja and Akshay, were also apprehended from their rented accommodation at Village Mangolpuri, Delhi.
At their instance, part of the stolen money was recovered.
On sustained interrogation, the trio disclosed that on the date of incident, six persons i.e. three males and three females, arrived in e-rickshaw at the place where Rohit gave a tip-off on the transportation of money being carried by the victim in his bag, on which the driver Shaym offered ride to the complainant in his e-Rickshaw and his other associates were already sitting in his e-rickshaw.
The women used their Burka-like cloth to cover the bag of the complainant and stole whole cash and absconded.
All the accused never communicate with each other while travelling on the e-rickshaw along with their victims to pose as passengers to hoodwink them and steal their valuables from the bags.
Meanwhile, the other accused, including the females, were currently on the run.
It was found that Pooja is a habitual criminal with a history of involvements in four criminal cases with the same modus operandi registered against her in Police Stations, Paschim Vihar, Mangolpuri and Kirti Nagar, Delhi.
Efforts are on to arrest the other three absconding co-accused persons, the police added.