Three men were arrested for falsely reporting a robbery and using the cooked up story to steal over Rs 21 lakh from a wholesale dealer in South Delhi, police said Monday.
The accused were identified as Raju (25), Mukesh (22) and Vinod (26), all residents of Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh. A total Rs 21.67 lakh was recovered from them, they said.
While Raju and Mukesh were employees of the dealer, Vinod worked for him two years ago, they said.
According to police, one complainant, who is a wholesaler dealer, came to police station and lodged a report where he stated that he used to collect the money from retailers and further send it to his distributor in Dakshinpuri.
On Friday, the complainant asked his employees Raju and Mukesh to give Rs 4 lakh to one person at Dakshinpuri, Ambedkar Nagar, police said.
Thereafter, his employees informed him that when they stopped the scooter near Bhairo Mandir, Outer Ring Road for urinating, someone came there and took away the bag containing cash after opening the boot space of the vehicle, a senior police officer said.
"During investigation, police interrogated Raju and Mukesh where they cooked up a new story. They said that three armed persons came in a car and robbed them at gun point at Nehru Place flyover," Chinmoy Biswal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast), said.
Later, they said that due to fear, they did not disclose the incident earlier, police said.
Both were questioned separately to reconstruct the scene, but there versions did not match which created suspicion on them. Nearby CCTV cameras were examined in which no such car was seen at the time of the said incident, the DCP said.
Later, they broke down and confessed to the crime. The accused disclosed that they were in dire need of money and hatched a plan with their friend Vinod, he said.
They handed over the money to him on the way, police said.
The accused also said that they have stolen more money from the shop and the total amount was around Rs 22 lakh, police said, adding that when the complainant checked his shop, he found another bundle of Rs 18 lakh was missing.
On their instance, Vinod, who used to work at this shop two years back, was also arrested from Barabanki.
Police recovered Rs 11.67 lakh from Raju and Mukesh and Rs 10 lakh from Vinod, they added.
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