Woman from upscale locality in Thane arrested for stealing from shops

Dump data analysis of more than 600 women who visited a popular electronic showroom on Ghodbunder Road during the Diwali week led the Kapurbawdi police in Thane to a woman from a well-to-do-family who stole electronic items from stores across this locality; the woman has been arrested

A tenacious dump data analysis of more than 600 women who visited a popular electronic showroom on Ghodbunder Road during the Diwali week led the Kapurbawdi police in Thane to a woman from a well-to-do-family who stole electronic items from stores across this locality.

A woman from a well-to-do family in Thane has been arrested for stealing electronic items from stores. (HT FILE)

The woman, with her sophisticated looks, did not attract suspicion, thus duping several stores by stealing laptops, mobile phones, cameras, Bluetooth devices, DVD players, headphones, vacuum cleaners, hard disks and watches and 11 CCTV cameras.

The woman has two children. Her husband holds a managerial post in a private company while her in-laws are retired government officials.

The accused (police withheld the name to protect the family identity), is in her 40s. She used to take advantage of the crowd in shops during the festive season which kept most of the salesmen occupied. She would roam around in the shops in a mask and flick gadgets when there was no salesman around. On November 3, the owner of Vijay Sales shop on Ghodbunder Road realised that one of the laptops worth ₹99,999 was missing from the stock. They registered a complaint on November 15, when they still failed to trace it.

S Nimbalkar, police inspector of Kapurbawdi police station, said, “We checked the CCTV footage of the shop and found the accused talking on the phone while her movements were suspicious. We did a data dump analysis and found about 600 women talking on their phone in the premises. We checked each of these women on their social media profiles and shortlisted those who looked similar to the accused.”

The police finally found the woman in the camera and located her resident in an upscale locality and arrested her. “We searched her house and found all the other gadgets worth ₹2.65 lakh.”

DCP Vinay Rathod said, “We are investigating further whether the woman is attached to some more people in this crime and getting information from her about other devices that she has stolen from different shops in the malls.”