Andhra gold traders robbed of Rs 1 cr by men posing as ‘police’

CHENNAI: Police have launched a hunt for an unidentified gang who robbed gold traders from Andhra Pradesh and allegedly escaped with Rs 1 crore worth cash they were carrying by posing as policemen near Sowcarpet on Friday.

Police sources said that the traders, Rahman (48) and Subbarao (58) from Andhra Pradesh came in a bus to Chennai and then were travelling in an auto rickshaw to Sowcarpet to buy gold for their shops when the incident happened.

A car which was trailing the autorickshaw from Madhavaram intercepted them near Sowcarpet, police investigations revealed. Four men who alighted from the car walked towards the auto with lathis and claimed to be policemen. The men enquired the occupants in the auto and claimed that they received a tip off that they were carrying cash meant for hawala transactions.

Believing that the quartet were policemen, the duo showed their cash bag to the group. The four men told the traders to provide proper documents for the cash and receive it at the Elephant Gate police station and fled the scene.

When the traders rushed to the police station, they realised that they were conned after which they registered a complaint with the Elephant Gate police station. Police are perusing the CCTV footages to identify the suspects.