Mumbai: 5 held for 'Special 26'-like I-T raid at businessman’s flat

MUMBAI: Luck finally ran out for a gang of five that posed as income-tax officers and targeted homes with unaccounted cash and jewellery when they conducted raids at a Santacruz businessman’s flat and a residence in Kashimira.
In the Santacruz case, they did not steal the jewellery, which they had planned to take away as seized property, because the businessman’s wife, a 48-year-old headmistress, protested and showed the VAT and GST bills for the valuables.Scared that their game would be up, they asked her to give Rs 1,000 to ‘pay the local police’ and left. Suspecting something amiss, she filed a police complaint the same day.
The police said the gang was inspired by the Bollywood heist film, ‘Special 26’. In the film, a group posing as CBI officers execute a fake income-tax raid on a jeweller.
Explaining the gang’s modus operandi, the police said that they would look for luxurious cars in the parking areas of housing societies and collect information about the car owner from the security guard. After keeping a watch on the target’s family for a couple of days and learning their daily schedule, the gang would conduct the ‘raid’. They banked on the probability that their victims would not report the theft of unaccounted cash or gold.
In the Santacruz case, they collected information about the businessman, who owned a Mercedes, from the building watchman and kept tabs on the family. On July 26, around 9.30pm, they rang the doorbell as they knew his wife was alone at home. In her complaint, she said: “They flashed their ID cards and identified themselves as I-T officials. They also showed the search warrant, so I let them in. They told me that they had got a tip-off that I have illegally bought gold ornaments. I showed them the jewellery and even the bills, but they insisted on seizing them as part of the investigation. I protested and started yelling at them.”
The woman realized something was amiss after the five men—Fiaz Kazi (48), Manav Singh (19), Sohaib Munshi (19), Salim Ansari (21) and Imran Ali (25), all school dropouts—made her pay Rs 1,000 which they claimed they would have to pay to the local cops. “The fake raid lasted almost 30 minutes. They left the place without stealing the jewellery or hurting the woman as they panicked when she started shouting at them,” said a police officer.
When her husband returned home, she told him about the raid and her suspicions about the I-T officers. The couple immediately approached the police. Based on the complaint, zonal DCP Paramjit Singh Dahiya formed a team of Santacruz police that got details of the accused on the police WhatsApp group from their counterparts at Kashimira police about a gang they had busted in August that had the same modus operandi.
The police team identified Kazi’s photograph in the Kashimira case file with the sketch that was prepared in July based on the wife’s description. She even identified him on Saturday. On Sunday, Santacruz police took custody of the five men, produced them in the Bandra holiday court, which remanded them in police custody till September 11.