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| Sunday, 30 October 2005 |
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'Crime Sunday' brings unexpected results Crime Sunday by Jayampathy Jayasinghe He was a businessman from Kandy who was engaged in the manufacture of umbrellas. He started his enterprise on a small scale a few years back but as the years rolled by his business prospered. The expansion of his business brought him wealth and he cultivated a taste for acquiring luxury goods, like Rolex wrist watches etc. He had a penchant for them although such watches cost around Rs 800,000 a piece in Sri Lanka. He was a resident of Mahaiyawa in Kandy. A few months ago while at home he noticed a stranger stealthily walking away from his house. He shouted at him to identify himself but it was in vain. The man slipped away without leaving any trace. A cat burglar who had trespassed into his bedroom without anybody in the household noticing him. The businessman found his dismay that his precious Rolex wrist watch and his expensive mobile phone had been stolen. He vividly remembered placing both items on a table in his bed room. Efforts to trace the burglar in the neighbourhood proved futile. So he lodged a complaint at the Kandy police on July 26 regarding the theft. Several months passed by but the Kandy police could not trace the suspect or recover the stolen items. In the meantime the Sunday Observer carried an article in their CRIME SUNDAY column last month how robbers entered the house of a well known physician in Colombo 7 and robbed his Rolex wrist watch worth Rs 1.8 million along with some jewellery at gun point. Subsequently an undercover agent who posed off as a buyer had helped CCD to nab the five men at a five star hotel in Colombo trying to dispose the Rolex watch. Meanwhile a person who read the story in the Sunday Observer had advised the Kandy businessman to proceed to Colombo Crime Division (CCD) in Colombo and discuss the matter with its Director SSP, Sarath Lugoda. After all the businessman was curious to know whether the CCD had recovered his Rolex wrist watch. But the man was disappointed when SSP Lugoda informed him that his Rolex wrist watch wasn't among haul of watches recovered by them. However, he instructed his OIC, to question the businessman for more details regarding his Rolex watch. When the OIC casually asked him to name the items that were stolen from his house, he said that he lost his mobile phone as well. This was the turning point in the investigation which ultimately led to the recovery of his Rolex watch and the mobile cellular phone. The Colombo Crime Division (CCD) have successfully solved several crimes committed by underworld men using mobile cellular phones. They have developed a technique to trace stolen mobile phones and to trace suspects from locations where they speak to their henchmen. The CCD men went to work with the data they gathered from the businessman. Soon they were able to trace the stolen cellular mobile phone. When informed of the development, SSP Lugoda despatched a team of policemen to Kandy to recover the mobile phone and to arrest the suspect. But they were not successful in apprehending him. The same team visited Kandy for the second time and finally traced the mobile phone. It was in the possession of a three wheeler taxi driver. When asked how he came to posses the mobile phone, the taxi driver spilled the beans and told police that he paid a sum of Rs. 6,000 and purchased it from a man who came along with a broker. Police traced the broker and with his help managed to trace the suspect somewhere in Kandy town. He was an unemployed man from Mahaiyawa who was released from Prisons this year after serving a six month jail term for a theft. When questioned about the Rolex watch he admitted that he stole it from the residence of the businessman at Mahaiyawa last July. SSP Lugoda said the funniest thing the suspect did was to sell the Rolex watch valued Rs 800,000 for only Rs. 400 to a small time businessman in Mahaiyawa whereas the mobile phone worth around Rs 40,000 was sold for a Rs. 6,000. "Obviously he wouldn't have known the value of a Rolex wrist watch. Otherwise he would have sold it to a person in Colombo for big price."
The suspect had deceived the businessman by saying that his sister employed
in a Middle Eastern country had given the watch to him as a gift. Later the
suspect was produced in court and remanded till investigation are completed. |
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