Gang loots chemicals worth Rs 98L in Chennai, arrested

CHENNAI: Police arrested a gang that looted chemicals worth nearly a crore that belonged to a private firm when they were about to be exported to Germany from the Madras Export Processing Zone in Tambaram.

The PharmaZell India company which is situated in MEPZ in Tambaram Sanatorium used to export chemicals that are used for medical purposes to Germany.

On August 18, the firm loaded 14,400 kgs of chemical in containers and sent them to the Chennai harbour and from there it was taken to Germany. Police sources said when a private company in Germany received the chemicals they found about 4,800 kgs were missing, which was worth Rs 98 lakh. Soon, the private company manager filed a complaint with the Tambaram police commissioner and special teams were formed to nab the people behind this.

The police when enquired about the lorry driver, who took the chemicals to the Harbour, found that a group of men were behind the theft. During the investigation, police found that a group of men would make the lorry drivers bring the lorry to a godown in Minjur and there without damaging the seal they would open the container and take the goods from it. In the same manner, the gang took the container to a godown and looted chemicals and then took the lorry to the harbour within two hours. Further based on the inputs given by the lorry driver the police recovered the chemical which was stored in a godown in Minjur.

Later, after investigation, police arrested Sathish Kumar, Maran, Sivabalan of Tiruvallur, and Karthick, Muniandi, Rajesh and Shankar of North Chennai. The police said the gang has also looted more than 1,000 keyboards which were about to be exported from a private firm in Thiruporur worth Rs 50 lakh and 300 shoes worth Rs 75 lakh from a private firm in Vellore. Tambaram police commissioner A Amalraj when interacting with the media said that GPS trackers are a must in all the container lorries so that this kind of incident can be stopped and he said we have also asked the private firm to send a security officer along with the lorry to the Chennai harbour so that this kind of crimes can be controlled in the future.