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Two posing as cops steal $10,000 from Iraqi national, fourth such incident in 10 days
Gurugram: Two men posing as policemen allegedly stole $10,000 from an Iraqi national on the pretext of conducting an inspection near Sector 29 market on Sunday.
Gurugram: Two men posing as policemen allegedly stole $10,000 from an Iraqi national on the pretext of conducting an inspection near Sector 29 market on Sunday. The police said that the victim had come to the city for the treatment of his sister at a private hospital.
This is the fourth instance of a foreign national being targeted in the last 10 days that suggests the involvement of the same gang, the police said. Most of the incidents have been reported outside hospitals, but Sunday’s was first such incident reported from Sector 29.
Karan Goel, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said that the suspects pose as policemen and stop foreign nationals on the pretext of checking their bags, and steal money and flee from the spot in a car. The impersonators even ask for their victim’s passports and check the visa dates and purpose of the stay.
Hassan Mohammad Hussin, a resident of Baghdad in Iraq, in his complaint to the police said that he had come to India on January 3 for his sister’s treatment. She was undergoing treatment at a private hospital in the city and in Dwarka, Delhi, the complaint said. They lived in a guest house in Sector 46, the police said.
“On Sunday around 3.30pm, I, along with my sister, was on way to watch a live show in Kingdom of Dreams when two men stopped our auto rickshaw and asked us to show our bags. They smelled our bags and said we were carrying drugs. Then they took out US $10,000 kept in the bag and rushed towards the car and fled from the spot,” said Hussin in his complaint.
The police said the modus operandi in all the cases remains the same and it is suspected that the same gang is behind all these incidents. “We have formed teams and they are deployed in civil dress at suspected locations. We have obtained CCTV footage from a few spots but we are yet to identify the suspects,” said Goel.
On the night of October 5, three men, driving around in a white Honda City car, had stopped an Iraqi national and his two siblings near Kanhai traffic signal in Sector 40 to check their identity cards. The suspects, who claimed to be policemen dressed in plain clothes, stole $2,400 from the victim’s handbag before decamping. Two days later, three men posing as cops stole $11, 400 in Sector 44 near a private hospital from a native of Baghdad, who had arrived in the city for his father’s medical treatment.
The police said that alleged gang members get tip-offs about patients, who come to the city for medical aid, and take up accommodation in guest houses in areas close to private hospitals in Sushant Lok-1, sectors 45, 38, 39, 52 and the Huda City Centre Metro station.
