Fake cops give real men in khaki sleepless nights

MUMBAI: From preying on - dents and senior citizens to extorting money from shopkeepers and businessmen, ‘fake cops’ in search of easy pickings have become menace to society especially in the western suburbs. And the real police appear to be unable to nab these fake cops. In four months between March and July 6, a 112 cases of hustlers posing as cops were reported across the city, but the police have managed to solve mere 18—that’s a detection rate of less than 20%.
These fake cops are particularly active in the western region (zones 8, 9 and 10) from Bandra to Andheri. In the four-month period, the three zones together accounted for 51 cases where citizens were duped of their money and jewellery by fake policemen. But to date only two cases have been solved. In one instance, a group of hustlers conned four victims in less than 24 hours. Local police stations between Bandra and Oshiwara have a particularly bad record with 35 incidents since March 1. The local police were able to crack only one case. “These cases refer to only those cons where the accused dupe citizens by pretending to be cops. They do not include other offences where senior citizens have been duped by conmen who don’t introduce themselves as cops,” said a police source.
The excuse for such a low detection rate is “helplessness”. Local police officials say that unless the conmen are caught in the act, it’s difficult to arrest fake cops because they never strike at the same place twice. “The accused never operate out of the same area more than once. They keep changing locations and neighbourhoods after every job,” said one officer. He added that what would help is more cooperation and smoother information flow between different local police stations.
The zones from Jogeshwari to Dahisar comes second after the western region for such petty crime. In four months, there have been 21 cases of fake cops conning locals; only four were solved. There was a time when the police did not lose much sleep over fake cops. But with the crime graph going north, such cases are now on their priority list.
Most of the conmen, said a crime branch officer, live in the outskirts of the city. Two month ago the Thane police had raided Irani Basti and detained 25 suspects. The cops had recovered stolen goods worth Rs 36 lakh and 41 bikes.
Deputy commissioner of police (detection) Nisar Tamboli said: “In some cases, we have made arrests with the help of passersby. We request citizens to remain vigilant.”
RECENT CASES
JULY 26 | Three unidentified men, posing as cops, duped a 59-year-old Goregaon (West) resident of jewellery worth Rs 2.07 lakh. The victim, Radha Takakhau, was near Patkar College when the trio accosted her. They introduced themselves as police officials and asked her remove her ornaments and place them in her handbag as a safety precaution. On the pretext of helping her, they stole her jewellery
JULY 17 | A middle-aged man—dressed in a traffic constable’s uniform—stopped a 23-year-old driver of an Indica on the pretext of checking his licence. As the owner stepped out of the car, the fake cop got in and drove off. The incident occurred on the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road
JULY 3 | Three men clad in ‘khaki’ convinced an 85-year-old woman, who was shopping for groceries at Oshiwara, to remove her jewellery as a security measure. They managed to escape with ornaments worth Rs 40,000. This is a popular modus operandi among conmen disguised as police officials. On June 30, a 54-year-old woman was robbed of jewellery worth Rs 66,000 at Amboli in a similar manner.