All signs point to inside job in Jangpura heist

Burglars robbed the 75-year-old store of at least 200 pieces of jewellery, including 125 diamonds, on Sunday night.

Accessing the building’s terrace without arousing suspicion, entering the store through a specific weak point, disarming the surveillance system, boring a hole in the only concrete wall of the strong room and evading most CCTV cameras in the packed market — every step burglars took during an audacious heist on a jewellery store in Jangpura was planned meticulously and executed with clockwork precision, pointing to an insider’s role in the theft, said police officers investigating the elaborate crime.

Delhi Police officials inside the jewellery shop in Jangura that was burgled on Sunday night. (Sanchit Khanna/HT photo)

Investigators made little headway in identifying the suspects a day after the ₹20 crore burglary came to light, but trained their focus on the showroom’s employees, past and present, as well as service-providers who frequented the store in Bhogal neighbourhood.

“The burglars targeted the only vulnerabilities in and around the showroom. This is possible only when somebody knows a place inside-out,” a senior police officer said on Wednesday.

According to the police, burglars robbed the 75-year-old store of at least 200 pieces of jewellery, including 125 diamonds, on Sunday night, executing a well-crafted operation with relatively consummate ease. Each chapter of the heist, from start to finish, suggests an inside job, said investigators.

Easy access to the terrace

The thieves, said police, mapped their entry and exit paths accurately and likely recced buildings in the vicinity before the heist.

They first made their way to the terrace of the four-storey building from a neighbouring building around 11.20pm on Sunday, going completely unnoticed..

“While there are at least three ways to access the showroom’s terrace through adjoining buildings, someone had to have had proper proper knowledge of the neighbourhood to do it without drawing anyone’s attention,” said Babbi Saini, an immediate neighbour.

In the absence of any definitive CCTV footage,the police have also not ruled out the possibility that the thieves camped on one of those terraces for several hours before striking.

Targeting a specific weakpoint to enter

Once they reached the terrace, one of the burglars used iron rods installed on the outer wall to climb down to a parapet, where the person cut open a glass window and broke into the building, said a police officer.

Only an insider could have had such specific knowledge of a vulnerability in the store, the officer said.

That burglar then likely jimmied the lock from the inside to allow his compatriots into the building.

From there, they walked down to the ground floor, which housed the store and, crucially, the strongroom.

Knowledge of wires, alarm system

The burglars disabled the alarm and the security system as soon as they entered the building, and before they made their way down to the shop on the ground floor. They also disabled every CCTV camera installed across the 800 sqft store.

“About a dozen CCTVs are installed inside the building, including nine on the ground floor. Yet, the thieves were able to avoid getting captured by any of the cameras, and didn’t set off any of the alarms,” said another investigator.

The officer added that such security systems can only be disabled if a person is versed with the process.

The police are also probing if the thieves switched off the lights in the building before they wiped the store clean.

Targeting the only concrete wall in the strong room

“Every night, before leaving the showroom, we would pack up all the gold and diamond jewellery and keep them in the strong room. It seems the thieves knew that,” said Mahavir Prashad Jain, the store owner.

To make their way into the strongroom, thieves used a gas cutter to slice a rectangular hole into the only concrete wall in the strongroom – the other three walls are built of metal and would be much more difficult to penetrate.

They cleared out every inch of the strongroom, which had the gold ornaments. But in the store itself, the thieves nicked only the gold and diamond jewellery, leaving the silver ornaments untouched, on their displays.

“Their focus seemed to be on high value and low volume. They went only for the gold and diamond ornaments,” said a showroom staffer who asked not to be named.

Aware of the lack of guards

Security personnel were not deployed to safeguard the jewellery store at any point at night, said one of the staffers, adding that the burglars also appeared to know this.

“The thieves also likely knew that no one occupied any part of the building at night, and that the market itself was largely guarded only by unarmed watchmen,” said a jeweller who asked not to be named.

Jain defended the choice to not hire security guards. “We have seen many cases of guards conspiring to loot shops. We don’t trust security guards,” he said.

To be sure, as on Wednesday evening, investigators were still unsure about the timing of events, or indeed the exact sequence of the crime. They were yet to rule out the possibility of the thieves staying in the showroom through Monday, drilling the hole during the day to avoid the commotion drawing suspicion, and then wrapping up and leaving the building that night — a few hours before the shop opened on Tuesday morning.

Evaded CCTVs installed in the vicinity

Even as the burglars disarmed CCTVs inside the store, surveillance cameras installed in the vicinity have been of little help to investigators, with the suspects seemingly managing to avoid being captured on tape.

This has led investigators to believe the thieves knew the market well and likely spent some time assessing the cameras in the neighbourhood.

Police have spotted suspicious activity in two pieces of footage — a video of a man carrying a bag and another of a suspicious MUV — but neither have given officers much of a foothold in the investigation.

“The market has over 50 jewellery shops and an abundance of CCTV cameras. Yet, the thieves managed to avoid being captured by any of them,” said a police investigator.

The police have also started checking the backgrounds of the residents in the adjoining buildings, particularly tenants who moved in recently.

But Jain is insistent that the burglary did not involve an insider, even a former employee.

“These people are trustworthy. Most of them have been working for me for several years,” Jain said.

The police believe otherwise.

“We are yet to crack the case and the investigation is still premature.... But I would be surprised if no insider is found involved,” said a senior police officer.