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Gurugram: Hunt on for white car used to dupe foreigners
Gurugram A gang of criminals, who pose as police and target foreign nationals, has been giving police the slip since last year. The gang has snatched money from
Gurugram A gang of criminals, who pose as police and target foreign nationals, has been giving police the slip since last year. The gang has snatched money from nationals of Iraq, Turkmenistan and Turkey, who had come to the city for medical treatment. The common connect in each of these cases, as reported by the victims, is a white car.
The police have constituted three crime branch teams to trace the “elusive” white car, which the gang has been allegedly using to carry out, but the police are yet to find any conclusive CCTV footage. In at least four cases reported in the city, including one this week, the victims said that the accused were travelling in a white Honda City.
Police officers said that the gang targets foreign nationals staying in hotels near major hospitals in sectors 38, 39 and 52, and Huda City Centre Metro station.
“The gang conducts a reconnaissance of hospitals and guest houses in the area. They approach foreign nationals, posing as police officers, who are detaining illegal immigrants and those trafficking narcotics. The gang has been using fake number plates on the same vehicle or using another vehicle to avoid being traced,” a police officer said, adding that after a spate of incidents this year, the gang had fled to Delhi and Noida, before resurfacing this week.
Police suspect the gang is tipped off about visitors and have prior information about foreign nationals coming to stay in these hotels.
Preetpal Sangwan, assistant commissioner of police (ACP), crime, said, “In two cases reported this week, the accused were travelling in a white Honda City and a white Swift. It is possible that the same gang is involved in both the incidents since they took place not too far from each other. We are checking the CCTVs for such vehicles at the time of the incidents.”
On Monday evening, an Iraqi national was targeted in Sector 44 by three men, who snatched 11,400$ from him on the pretext of checking his passport, two days after another Iraqi national was duped of 2,400$ by three men posing as police in Sector 40.
Police suspect that the same gang could be behind the two incidents that took place within 48 hours, within a radius of about two kilometres.
Adil Ahmed and his father, Jasim Ahmed, both from Baghdad, arrived in the city on Sunday and checked into a hotel in Sector 40. In the police complaint, Adil said that they went to Fortis Hospital for his father’s medical check-up and in the evening, had tea at a restaurant at the Huda City Centre Metro station.
“After tea, we were walking on the service road near Taj Hotel when a white car, in which three men were seated, stopped on the main road. One of them called us, saying they were police and asked for our passports. After checking the passports, one of them put his hands in my pocket and took 11,400 US dollars. When I asked them to return the money, they drove away. I could not note down the registration number of the car,” he said in the FIR.
In the case reported on Saturday night, the victim had said that he was returning to his hotel in Sector 39 in an autorickshaw with his siblings, when three men in a white Honda City had stopped them and asked for their IDs. The suspects had claimed to be police officers, who were conducting a routine inspection.
