Newspaper advertisement leads cops to laptop heist gang; 1 held

According to police, Pazhani along with five others intercepted a lorry carrying 230 imported laptops from Chennai airport to an IT company in Oragadam and blindfolded the lorry driver Balasubramanian and the IT firm’s staff Rajaguru, before bundling them into a car. 

Then Pazhani’s associates fled with the lorry and the laptop load worth around Rs 1.65 crore. While the lorry was later found abandoned near Manimangalam, the laptops were missing from the vehicle. Balasubramanian and Rajaguru were pushed off the car by the gang on the East Coast Road near Kalpakkam. 

Acting on a complaint from the lorry driver and the IT firm staff, Manimangalam police formed a special team to investigate the case. The special team closely followed all the classified advertisements published in newspapers regarding sale of laptops and called the phone numbers given in them and traced some the numbers. 

Police department sources said that one particular number was found to be frequenting the cargo area of Chennai airport and zeroed in on the person. 

Later, a few police personnel visited the spot in plain clothes, and identified the person carrying the phone and brought him into the investigation ring, added the sources. 

During interrogations, it came to light that the person was the brain behind the laptop heist and he was identified as S Pazhani, a travel agency owner in Alandur. 

Inquiries also revealed that S Pazhani had carried out the heist with five others, including his brother, using his car. Police also said that Pazhani has confessed to the crime during the interrogation. 

Among the five persons on the run, three have been identified as Suresh, Yuvaraj and Pazhani’s brother Kutty. The police special team have launched a hunt to nab the associates of Pazhani. Investigations are on recover the remaining laptops as well.