Jewel thief in Bihar jail behind spate of heists?

A gang of thieves, run from a jail in Bihar, has been involved in theft of at least 180kg of gold across five Hindi heartland states over the past five years.

Patna/Dehradun: What started as a routine investigation into the robbery at a Reliance Jewellery story in Dehradun on November 9 — it was solved promptly with arrests the same month — has pointed to the existence of a gang that focuses almost exclusively on gold and jewellery thefts, and which is run from the Beur jail in Bihar. Over the past five years, police say, the gang has been involved in the theft of at least 180kg of gold across five Hindi heartland states.

Subodh Kumar Singh alias Dilip Singh was arrested in January 2018 with 15kg of gold — the takings from a heist in a jewellery store in Patna district.

Police have identified the mastermind as Subodh Kumar Singh alias Dilip Singh, who was bitten by the gold bug; his gang, of around 70, mostly from Bihar, has been operating since 2018, they add.

A senior Bihar police official who asked not to be named, said Singh, a resident of Chistipur village in Bihar’s Nalanda district, around 52km southeast of Patna, was arrested by the Special Task Force (STF) in January 2018 with 15kg of gold — the takings from a heist in a jewellery store in Rupaspur police station area in Patna district — and was sent to Beur central jail, where he remains to the day as an undertrial. Police officers said charge-sheets have been filed against Singh in six cases under sections of the Arms Act, for murder, robbery, attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy and the Bihar Prison Act. “The cases against him are being heard in local courts,” said a police officer.

From jail, the officer added, Singh has managed to run his gang; Dehradun senior superintendent of police (SSP) Ajai Singh said that Subodh’s gang has previously hit a Reliance Jewellery store in Raiganj, West Bengal; Manappuram Gold outlets in Katni (Madhya Pradesh), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Udaipur (Rajasthan); and an Axis Bank branch in Bhiwadi, Haryana.

Bihar’s additional director general of police (operations), Sushil Manasingh Khopde, said Singh faces six cases in Bihar, including those under the Arms Act and for other crimes such as murder, forgery and attempt to murder. He also faces other cases related to robbery of gold in Maharashtra, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. “As per data available in our office, six cases were registered against him in West Bengal, four in Rajasthan, three each in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh in connection with loot of around 181kg gold,” he said, adding that the amount involved is around ₹104 crore. To be sure, police has not provided data on the amount of gold recovered.

“The gang hardly fails. Only once in Yamunanagar, Haryana in September 2022, was one of the five robbers caught during the attempt,” Ajai Singh said.

Two other police officers, one from Bihar and another from Dehradun, said that Singh’s modus operandi revolves around the use of minimum violence, and specialisation. “For each robbery, there are three teams. The first commits the crime, the second transports the loot, and the third sells gold and other jewellery in Nepal and other neighbouring countries,” said inspector Sandeep Kumar Singh, who questioned Singh when he was arrested in 2018.

The November robbery followed the same modus operandi. According to police, Prince Kumar, the main accused, reached Saharanpur, a town in Uttar Pradesh just around 70km from Dehradun, with another accused, Abhishek Kumar. The other members of the gang, Vikram Kumar Kushwaha, Rahul Kumar and Avinash Kumar gathered in Ambala, Haryana, around 180km away from Dehradun. On the morning of November 9, Prince, Abhishek, Rahul and Avinash entered the store and held the staff hostage at gunpoint while Vikram Kumar waited for them in a getaway car. They directed the staff to fill the jewellery in bags.

According to police, after the crime, Rahul Singh and Avinash Kumar left with jewellery worth ₹14 crore for Paonta Sahib in Himachal Pradesh and Vikram and Abhishek Kumar left for Bihar. SSP Ajai Singh said Rahul Singh and Avinash Kumar handed over the jewellery to Vishal Kumar, who was waiting for them in Paonta Sahib. Kumar took the jewellery to Nepal, where it was sold, the police officer added.

Interrogation of the accused revealed that the gang conducted a recce of the store multiple times over a month, and was aware of the stock arriving in the store for sale on Dhanteras, a day when it is considered auspicious to buy gold. Dehradun police found that a Maruti Suzuki Ertiga car used in the crime was stolen from Agra as long back as June. Other gang members used vehicles bought online on the basis of fake identification cards, Ajai Singh said.

“The gang members were in touch with Singh using Telegram so that their location could not be traced. The gang would use portable signal jammers to block reception between cell towers and mobile phones during their robberies,” he added.

According to the officer, the control room for the theft was in Bihar’s Vaishali district. “From there, the robbers would be allotted tasks, information related to firearms, cash, vehicles, clothes, SIM cards, would be shared with them. The robbers on the ground during the Dehradun robbery were in constant contact with those at the operations centre,” SSP Singh said.

Police said Singh recruits young people serving time in jails in Bihar and West Bengal , and gives them specific tasks. “For each task, they get an advance of ₹ 5-10 lakh and Singh pays them from inside the jail. We traced transactions to the bank accounts of those involved in the Dehradun robbery,” Ajai Singh said.

He added that none of the team members knew each other before the robbery and that Singh ensured that they also knew nothing more than the specific task assigned to them. “For instance, if someone is given the job to deliver an asset to be used in the crime, he would only be told the location where it had to be delivered.”

Police said most of the loot was sold in Nepal for 70% of the actual cost of the gold and other jewellery. “Part of the money would go to Singh through hawala and rest was distributed among gang members involved in the operation,” the Bihar police officer cited above said. The SSP added that they were yet to recover the jewellery looted from Dehradun.

Such is Singh’s clout , another senior police officer from Bihar said, that nobody dares to cheat him. “It is suspected that he got his old accomplice Manish Kumar Telia alias Netaji murdered in Vaishali jail on January 3, 2020,” the officer added, asking not to be named. The officer said that Singh’s role is being investigated in the murder of another associate, Yusuf Kaushal, alias Hani Raj inside the Vaishali town police station on November 11, 2023.

The Bihar police officer said that arrests do not impact Singh’s work. “By the time the accused are arrested, the loot is already sold in Nepal and the money has reached Subodh Singh. And he starts planning for the next operation.” Patna SSP Rajiv Mishra said the city administration has also written to the prison department to shift Subodh to Bhagalpur jail so that his activities can be controlled.

An officer in Beur jail said police from different states regularly come to interrogate Singh in connection with thefts.

On October 12, 2020, West Bengal CID interrogated him at Beur prison in connection with a gold jewellery robbery in Asansol. In December 2022, Madhya Pradesh police questioned in connection with the theft of 16kg gold worth ₹8 crore from Mannapuram Gold store in Madhya Pradesh’s Katni district, after six of his gang members were arrested . And in 2023, he was taken to Maharashtra for 10 days in an investigation into a gold robbery in Nagpur.

Yet, the heists continue.