Unbelievable mobile phone thefts

Sunday Crime by Jayampathy Jayasinghe

Pettah is the hub of commercial activity in Sri Lanka being situated close to the Colombo Port for several centuries. It is a busy and a crowded place with rows of shops located in every nook and corner of its streets. There are the wealthy merchants who dabble in import and export trade while shopkeepers display their merchandise to attract customers.

The business boom in Pettah not only attracted businessmen and customers but along came the thieves and racketeers who had joined the bandwagon to make a quick buck. They profited from thefts and by indulging in various kinds of rackets like dealing in drug etc. Pettah has acquired it's notorious status over the years, as it is a den of vice and crime. The Pettah police station for instance is inundated with complains of crime like thefts, robberies, extortion rackets to name a few.

It was July 6th, when shop owner Majhood decided to close his shop at 7.00 p. m. after a hard days work. His shop was located at the Cross road in Pettah. He had a thriving business selling cellular mobile phones. It was a routine practice for him to close shop around that time every day.

Although thoroughly exhausted that evening he made it a point to check whether the glass show case was securely locked up. It contained expensive cellular mobile phones worth millions of rupees.

There were fifty five cellular phones in the glass showcase. Satisfied that everything was securely locked up Majhood with his assistant left home around 8.p.m. after padlocking the shop's main door.

But when Majhood returned to his shop on the following day around 9 a.m. with his assistant they found something unbelievable had happened. The shop's main door padlocks had been replaced with different ones.

Assessment

The first thing that crossed their mind was whether someone had burgled their shop and taken away the expensive cellular mobile phones. Their assessment was one hundred percent correct when they broke the padlocks and entered the shop.

What they discovered was that the fifty five cellular mobile phones valued over ten million rupees with ten memory cards had all vanished. There were expensive brands like Nokia, Siemens, Erricksons, Sonny to name a few. Someone had burgled his shop and removed the cellular mobile phones along with a brief case and bag.

Ostensibly the thieves would have packed the loot into the brief case and the bag and made their exit. After discovering their colossal loss proprietor Majhood lodged a complaint at the Pettah police station and later at the Colombo Crime Division (CCD) headed by Director, SSP Sarath Lugoda. The Colombo Crime Division (CCD) utilising modern technology has had a string of success in solving complicated crime cases in the past.

Director Lugoda entrusted the case to his able lieutenant Inspector Weeratunga who had solved difficult criminal cases in the past using modern technological methods. Within a few days a police informant got in touch with inspector Weeratunga who tipped off that a man lurking about in the Manning market Pettah was trying to dispose a brand new cellular mobile phone. Marketplaces are nests of gossip where criminals come to know so many things. Inspector Weeratunga lost no time in meeting the seller at the Manning market premises that afternoon.

Disguise

Dressed in civilian clothing with another policeman, Inspector Weeratunga posed off as a buyer. After confronting the seller, he inquired how much he need for the Nokia cellular phone. The seller insisted that he needed Rs. 10,000 and was feeling a bit uneasy about it. He seemed to be in a mighty hurry to dispose it quickly and get away with the money.

However something told the inspector that it could be one of the stolen cellular phones. At this stage the inspector revealed his identity and took the man for questioning. After interrogating him for several hours, police found that he was the real culprit who had burgled Majhood's shop in Pettah.

He was the mastermind behind the operation. A police team rushed to his home at Hulftsdorp and recovered nine Cellular Mobile Phones. Another twenty cellular phones were recovered from his brother-in law's home in the same vicinity. However police had to look for another 26 phones which the suspect had given over to three traders in Akurana area.

Meanwhile a CCD police party left to Akurana on the same day and recovered the balance 26 cellular mobile phones from a shop. The suspect and his brother -in law were arrested by the CCD and were taken before courts in Hulftsdorp. Both suspects pleaded guilty to the charges and were sentenced to a five years' rigorous imprisonment plus a fine of Rs 10,000 each which was suspended by the court.