Pune : Wife’s Facebook friend arrested for stealing valuables worth Rs 14.4 lakhs

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Sumit Singh

Pune, September 8, 2019 : The sleuths from Crime Branch unit 5 of Pune city police on Saturday arrested a 29-year-old notorious criminal for allegedly stealing Rs 50,000 cash, gold, silver ornaments, totally worth Rs 14.4 lakhs, from the flat of a woman whom he had befriended on social media networking website Facebook. The woman has also been arrested.

The arrested accused has been identified as Nilesh Sharad Taware, a native of Shahupuri in Satara. “We have recovered Rs 50,000 cash, gold jewelry 300 gram, 1 kg silver, totally worth Rs 11.93 lakhs from the accused’s possession. Further investigation is going on. He has 33 offences registered against him at various police stations”, said DCP (crime) Bachchan Singh.

According to police, the incident had taken place at Dhavalgiri Society on Bibvewadi- Kondhwa road. The family members had gone out between 12 noon an d12.45 pm, when someone had decamped with the cash and valuables. A 40-year-old man had lodged an FIR in this regard with Marketyard police station. “While investigating the case, we suspected that duplicate key was used to enter the flat. Though the CCTV cameras of the housing society were not working, we obtained footage from camera of a nearby bungalow and zeroed on a suspect. The watchman of the society also said that a man used to visisted the complainant’s house”, said senior police inspector Sambhaji Nimbalkar, in-charge of Marketyard police station.

Police inspector Datta Chavan, in-charge of Crime Branch unit 5, said, “The accused and complainant’s wife became friends on Facebook. He had visited the flat 2-3 times and had stolen the keys.”

Additional Commissioner of Police (crime) Ashok Morale, DCP (crime) Bachchan Singh, ACP Shivaji Pawar supervised the investigation team which included PSI Somnath Shendge and policemen Santosh Mohite, Mahesh Waghmare, Dattatray Katam, Amzad Pathan, Rajesh Ransing, Rajabhau Bhorde, Badu Shinde, Pradip Surve, Sachin Gholap, Daya Shegar, Pramod Gaikwad, and Praveen Kalbhor.