The 29-year-old serial thief would visit stores and while the salesman would try to evaluate the cost of the ring she would exchange it with a similar looking one of a lower cost
A thief steals a valuable gold ring and then in an attempt not to be caught, replaces the stolen item with a knock-off. For those who thought this was the plot of a movie, think again. A 29-year-old woman was arrested by the Mulund police as she swapped the gold ring with a ring of a lower value.
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The accused, Neelam Pratap Jadhav, would visit jewellery stores and carry out the con job. However, on July 22, her game was up. Sub-Inspector Dilip Mane from the Mulund police station said, “Jadhav swapped a 6-gram gold ring with a 2-gram ring, as the chances of getting caught are much lower than a real robbery.”
Modus operandi
Jadhav visited Mansi Jewellers store at MG Road, Mulund on July 22. She asked the salesman to show her rings and then started to have a conversation with him.
She then selected a ring and asked him to tell her the value of the item. In the time that the salesman ascertains the value, she swaps the ring without anyone coming to know. “She places the ring on one finger and then slyly slips off the lower-valued ring from another finger,” said Mane explaining the theft.
However, it was not her lucky day that day as her con came to light after the salesman came to know that the rings had been swapped.
Mane added, “He noticed that the ring did not have the label, which all the other rings have before they are sold. So, the salesman realised that it had been swapped and then confronted her. However, Jadhav kept denying the allegations.”
Later, the shop owner Manish Kumar Babulal Jain brought her to the police station and an FIR was lodged against her. It was only during interrogations that she confessed to the crime.
Authorities added that it was then that she also confessed that she had stolen in the past too. She revealed she was stealing in order to pay the bills at home. Investigations also revealed that Jadhav’s husband too was a history sheeter.
The accused has been booked under Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code. She is now out on a bail bond of Rs 10,000.
“We are investigating and trying to find cases with similar modus operandi,” said the investigating official. u00a0