News
Gang of four netted after tracking one suspect for two months
A four-member gang behind a spate of high profile robberies was busted earlier this week after the Police closely followed the movements of one of the suspects for more than two months. He was arrested in Ragama, police said yesterday. The gang led by a serving Army corporal was allegedly behind a dozen robberies where they raked in a loot of some Rs. 50 million, according to police.
They said the gang had been in operation since the start of this year and the bulk of their victims were those exiting different banks located in and around the metropolis with huge cash withdrawals. In one particular case that gang grabbed Rs. 7.5 million from a factory executive shortly after he left a privately owned bank at Ekala in Jaela on May 5 this year.
The executive had made a cash withdrawal for his daughter’s wedding that was due in a month’s time. The man died before the wedding in apparent grief and shock, according to police. In another case also in the Jaela area the gang pounced on a woman who was leaving a private bank and grabbed Rs. 500,000 before getting away in a white van fitted with tinted glass windows.
Later they also robbed a money exchange centre situated inside a jewellery shop at Sea Street in the Pettah and got away with local and foreign currency valued at Rs. 35 million, police investigations have found out.
Luck ran out for the gang during a hold up near a bank at Modera when one suspect was accidentally shot dead by another member of the same gang while attempting to mug a woman. The gang got away with Rs. 500,000 but decided to leave their dead colleague behind providing police with a clue to the remaining members of the gang.
Later sleuths from the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) kept a watch on the main suspect — a resident of Ragama — for several weeks before picking him up for questioning and obtaining the names and addresses of the other suspects with their arrests coming soon after.
At the time of his arrest the suspect was armed with a fully loaded automatic hand gun and told investigators that he had planned to shoot himself in the event of his arrest. Investigations have revealed that the gang had invested the loot on real estate, vehicles and fixed deposits at leading State banks. Police also said that the vehicles used in the robberies had been hired from vehicle renting companies.
Apart from these high-profile robberies the gang had also successfully carried out another eight such robberies in Colombo and the suburbs. The suspects are currently being held under a Detention Order until further investigations are completed.
Further investigations are being carried out by the TID.