Lifestyle

Facepalm moment for cops as thief outsmarts them; and how!

Petty thief outsmarts policemen who came looking for him with his photograph

A group of cops in Erumely, a town in central Kerala, ended up with an egg-on-their-faces situation after they were fooled by a petty thief they were looking for. The funny episode happened after an investigation was launched to nab a thief who stole an iPhone and adaptor from a house at Kanakappalam in Erumely. A small town, Erumely lies in the southeastern part of Kottayam district in Kerala.

The incident unfolded thus:  A resident of Kanakappalam filed a complaint at the Erumely police station stating that his iPhone and its adaptor were stolen from his house. The police immediately took up the case and a probe was launched. The complaint was filed along with CCTV visuals recorded during the time of the theft.

Armed with the visuals, the policemen launched themselves on a mission to catch hold of the robber who was seen as breaking into the house and robbing the house owner of his iPhone along with its adaptor. The cops took printouts of his face from the CCTV grab and went about looking for the man who committed the crime.

On investigation, the cops zeroed in on information that thief was a worker at a local automobile service station in the area. The police men paid a visit to the service station and showed the picture of the thief to the first man they met there. Funnily enough, the person to whom the picture shown was none other than the thief himself.

Post-enquiry, the unassuming cops believed the iPhone thief when he said that he knew the man in the photograph but that he had left his job some time ago and that his whereabouts were not known. After the policemen left, the thief was under the assumption that they would never return for another round of investigation. But that was not to be!

thief
CCTV visuals showed the thief breaking into the house and leaving with the iPhone

The cops came back again – twice, according to people from the Erumely area. And the man parroted what he had said in the previous occasions. The cops left again, believing the thief who answered their queries without batting an eyelid.

With the cops regularly coming to the service station, the man realized that it wouldn’t be able to fool the policemen all the time, every time. And so he decided to leave silently.

The police who ran about in circles regarding the probe finally decided to talk to the service station owner, who they never met during their earlier visits. It was only then they found out they were being fooled by the robber himself.  Not before long, with more clarity and further proof, they rushed to the spot again. But, by then, the thief had left the place. After thorough search of the place, the policemen found a shirt left behind by the thief before he escaped. And in its pocket, the iPhone that was reported stolen.

The whole episode revealed the cops folly and flaw in probe, but then it was too late. However, the cops can now console themselves that they were able to find the stolen phone and return it to the owner.

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Sanjeev Ramachandran

A journalist with 23 years of experience, Sanjeev has worked with reputed media houses such as Business Standard, The Ne More »
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