Rs 12 crore bank heist: Mangaluru police nab 69-year-old, his aide
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Photo courtesy of The Indian Express: Bhaskar Belchapada, 69, and Mohammed Nazir alias Hameed, 65
Bengaluru: Police in Managaluru arrested on Tuesday a 69-year-old man for being a ‘key player’ in the 18.5 kg gold heist at a co-operative bank in Dakshina Kannada on January 17, The Indian Express reported.
Bhaskar Belchapada is found to be the ‘key local conduit’ in executing the robbery of gold worth ₹12 crore at the Vyavasaya Seva Sahakari Sangha Bank at Kotekar.
An associate of Belchapada’s identified Mohammed Nazir alias Hameed, who is a 65-year-old Mangaluru resident, was also arrested allegedly for helping with the robbery carried out by a Mumbai-based professional gang.
Earlier police arrested three of the six key members of the professional gang involved in the robbery and recovered the entire 18.5 kg of stolen jewellery.
Those arrested are Murugandi Thevar, 36, Yosuva Rajendran, 35, and Kannan Mani, 35 – from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.
Following these arrests police stated at the time they were looking for a senior citizen known as ‘Shashi Thevar’, the local who helped planning the robbery.
But on Tuesday ‘Shashi Thevar’ turned out to be Belchapada, a resident of Gujarat but hails from Dakshina Kannada, who had committed crimes in Mangaluru, Delhi, and Mumbai.
Belchapada had been previously arrested in 2022 along with seven others for planning to rob a local jewellery store.
Those the arrested Dinesh Rawal, 38, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Bistha Roop Singh, 34, Krishna Bahadur Bogati, 41, and Imdadul Razak Sheikh, 27 had involvement in robberies of banks and jewellery stores in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, and Punjab.
The theft of two motorcycles in the city led Mangaluru Crime Branch to thieves, identifying Belchapada and the other accused as part of the ‘Sahibganj gang’.
Anupam Agarwal, Police Commissioner, Mangaluru said that a gang of professional and armed bank and jewellery robbers who met at the Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai carried out the Kotekar bank robbery.
‘There are over 30 members who have been involved in crimes in different combinations and they form teams for robberies according to the circumstances,’ Agarwal was quoted as saying.
The members of Belchapada’s gang and Murugandi Thevar’s gang based in Mumbai executed the Kotekar bank robbery.
Thevar’s gang members are accused in a 2016 heist of 20 kg of gold at the Popular Finance Company in Navi Mumbai, police sources reportedly said.
