Three held for robbing Japanese tourist of ₹9.27 lakh in Goa

They confined and threatened Teramoto and stole his cash, credit cards and forced him out of the country, the police said

The Goa police have arrested three people for robbing a Japanese tourist of 1.5 million Yen ( ₹9.27 lakh approximately) in the tourist state in December last year.

Representational image.

Two accused, identified as Wasim Khan (25) and Chand Babu (32) were arrested from Jaipur, while the third Tahir Younis, also a native of Rajasthan, was nabbed from Cochin.

Khan and Babu, who had approached and befriended Japanese tourist Tatsuki Teramoto identifying themselves and Raju and Romy, initially hung around with him while sightseeing and partying.

Later, two persons claiming to be cops cornered Teramoto and his ‘friends’ on the pretext that they were smoking marijuana. They confined and threatened Teramoto and stole his cash, credit cards and forced him out of the country.

“As soon as we received the complaint, we registered the case and set up teams of officers to track the accused. Teams were dispatched to Cochin, Chennai and finally Jaipur, where the accused were arrested,” North Goa superintendent of police Nidhin Valsan said.

“We believe there are six people involved, and we are hopeful that we will be able to trace the others after interrogating those arrested,” he said.

The plan was to target vulnerable and gullible tourists, befriend them before forcing them to cough up money by threatening them with violence, Valsan added.