Influencer hooked to good life steals jewellery, cash worth ₹24L, arrested

Former TikTok star arrested for stealing ₹24 lakhs worth of valuables from a car parked outside a hospital. Accused had millions of followers on TikTok before it was banned. Stolen goods recovered from car and other objects found. Accused had previous theft cases registered against him.

MUMBAI Bandra police arrested a former TikTok star on Monday night for allegedly stealing valuables worth ₹24 lakhs, which includes gold jewellery and diamonds worth ₹23 lakhs, from a BMW car parked outside Lilavati Hospital.

Abhimanyu Gupta, 31, had nine million followers on TikTok, before it was banned by the government. (HT Photo)

The accused, Abhimanyu Gupta, 31, had nine million followers on TikTok, before it was banned by the government. He subsequently transitioned to Instagram, where his reels showing a flashy lifestyle have garnered four lakh followers. After tracking him down, police were able to recover the stolen goods from the car as well as several other objects such as electronic devices and a motorbike Gupta allegedly stole earlier. Investigations revealed the social media influencer from Kurla had theft cases registered against him since 2011.

A resident of the suburb’s Bail Bazar locality, he had earlier been arrested by Juhu police in 2019 in a case of burglary of ₹10 lakhs.

The latest incident took place on Saturday evening, when an import-export businessman based in Seven Bungalows, Andheri, Pratik Maheshwari, dropped by at the Bandra hospital to check on his father. He had parked his car outside the hospital around 4pm, leaving a bag of in the rear seat. When he returned a couple of hours later, he found the rear window broken and the bag missing, which had diamonds and other jewellery, ₹1 lakh in cash, documents and digital keys of the car.

“After this, he came to us to report the theft,” said an official from Bandra police. Police booked the then unknown accused under sections 379 (theft) and 427 (mischief causing damage of property) of the IPC, following which they scanned the CCTV footage outside the hospital to pursue the accused. They spotted a red and white Yamaha superbike used by the accused and set about tracking its location. They eventually found it parked in Kurla.

“We waited for someone to take the vehicle and caught Gupta when he arrived. He later told us that he had stolen the bike from Panvel and affixed a fake number plate to it. Apart from the bike we also recovered the stolen goods from Saturday,” said the investigating officer.

There were four cases of theft registered against him over the last few months, from Thane and Panvel. There were two other cases – one registered in 2011 with the Vinoba Bhave Nagar police station and another with Marine Lines police station in 2015.

Like most social media influencers, Gupta was hooked into projecting himself enjoying the good life, which involved fast cars, bikes and rounds of partying. He has also collaborated with popular social media stars like Armaan Malik, Jannat Zubair, Mr Faisu, Hasnain Khan and several others from Team07 – all Kurla residents.

“He is a habitual thief who routinely steals to maintain a lifestyle which he can flash on social media. He has an eye for expensive things,” said the officer.

The accused was produced in court on Tuesday morning and is currently in police custody.