Rs 5 lakh deal, 15-minute target: Inside Bihar’s ‘Gold Thief’ Subodh Singh’s heist plot in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: Escape with 15 kg gold in 15 minutes - that was the target that the PMJ Jewellers heist mastermind Subodh Singh had set for his gang members who struck at the store in Karimnagar on May 3. Senior police officials told TOI that he had passed on this message to his men through his associates.Subodh, who is also known as Bihar’s Gold Thief, had promised the five men who executed the heist Rs 5 lakh for successfully completing the operation. In the end, however, the gangsters could get away with just 1.61 kg gold and diamonds because the PMJ staff resisted them.“We asked the two men we arrested - Raghunath Karmakar and Ravish Kumar - why they did not cover their faces while executing the heist. They said masks would have made the security staff suspicious, which would have made it difficult for them to get into the store,” a police officer investigating the case said.Investigators are also trying to trace the firearms used in the heist. “We suspect that Subodh’s team which came to Telangana to receive the stolen gold, took the weapons with them. The modus operandi of the gang has been to quickly melt the stolen gold in either West Bengal or Bihar and then shift it to associates in Nepal,’’ a police officer said.Officials said Subodh understood how the police worked because he had been a police informer between 2000 and 2008. The tactics he gathered then helped him plan his heists more meticulously.According to information gathered so far, Raghunath first met Subodh when they were both lodged in Asansol jail in West Bengal several months ago. But none of the five accused involved in the Karimnagar case were directly in touch with Subodh when the conspiracy was hatched. It was his henchman who acted as handlers of Raghunath, Ravish and three others.Officials added that they cracked the case by showing photos of the accused to those lodged in different jails in Bihar. They nabbed the three men as soon as their identities were known. Officials said they also have information about persons who supplied the weapons, and those who acted as handlers and would be arresting them soon.