Updated on: 2nd August 2023 2:08 PM IST | Mumbai
S S Nadar | news@debotimes.in

According to police, the 24-year-old studied the entire city market flyover well and ensured there was CCTV footage of ornaments being put inside the boot of the scooter.

A 24-year-old jeweller in Bengaluru faked a Rs 2-crore robbery of gold and silver to get insurance money after being influenced by a web series, Police Commissioner B Dayananda said Monday as he announced the businessman’s arrest.

Raj Jain, a resident of Binnypet, approached the Cottonpet police on July 12 claiming that his minor relatives who were transporting gold and silver ornaments worth Rs 2 crore to Hyderabad and a two-wheeler were robbed. He claimed the incident took place around 7.30 pm on the city market flyover.

A team led by Inspector Balaraj G found that the gold ornaments had indeed been transported. But the robbery was said to have taken place where no CCTV cameras had been installed.

An officer said that after talking to a few motorists who had been on the flyover at the time, the police found that no robbery had taken place there.

“We started checking the phone calls of Jain, his location when the crime took place and the minors’ location as well. There were no leads. Though Raj gave the complaint, he was also one of the suspects and we followed him. We got to know that he had applied for insurance payment for stolen gold. At the same time he was doing the rounds between Bengaluru and Hyderabad. We found that he had sold the gold and he was later caught,” the police officer said. “During the interrogation, he admitted that he wanted to make it look like a robbery so that he could get Rs 2-crore insurance payment in addition to the Rs 2 crore he had sold it for in Hyderabad.”

Jain has studied till Class 12 and his father is a successful businessman. The police said he had planned the episode on the basis of some crime series he had watched on over-the-top streaming platforms. He worked on the plan for a month, they added.

Jain had studied the entire stretch of the city market flyover well and ensured there was CCTV footage of ornaments being put inside the boot of the scooter, according to the police.

The police recovered the gold ornaments of 3.780 kg and silver ornaments of 2.760 kg that he claimed to have been stolen.

Jain is in judicial custody and the two minors who executed his plan are in a juvenile home.