Team Herald
PANJIM: A team from the Anjuna Police station busted a gang of mobile phone thieves from the venue of the ongoing Sunburn EDM event and recovered 29 high-end mobile handsets from them. The police have arrested 18 persons from Mumbai accused in the case. Another gang of five mobile phone thieves was arrested by the Calangute police late Friday evening and mobile phones worth Rs five lakh were seized from them.
The Anjuna police had received intelligence that many thieves would be attending the music festival just to steal mobile phones. Accordingly, police personnel were deployed in civil clothes at specific points to keep a lookout for potential suspects. Police said they nabbed two persons who were found moving through the crowd suspiciously and they were detained and questioned. The two confessed that they had come to the festival along with their accomplices, to steal mobile phones from tourists. Further investigation led the police team to a hotel in Calangute, and the 16 others were also arrested. Three vehicles which were used by the accused persons have also been seized by the police. 29 mobile phones together worth Rs 10,00,000 approximately have been seized from their possession. An offence under Section 379 R/w 34 of the IPC has been registered and all accused persons have been lodged in police lockup.
The Calangute police had on Thursday arrested 12 persons who were a part of phone snatching gang, which was in Goa to target persons coming to Sunburn. They had stolen 41 phones.
