Mumbai: The Mumbai police disguised themselves as postmen and fruit vendors to track down the accused, who had stolen gold worth Rs 42.38 lakh from a Dahisar flat. The police arrested three men from Uttar Pradesh, while more people are wanted in the case.

According to the police, the theft was reported in December 2021 in Dahisar (East) at the residence of a businessman. Following this, the police screened the CCTV footage of 167 cameras.

The accused persons had used 97 different SIM cards among them to throw the investigation off track and had entered their names on the Truecaller app as "Alibaba." This led to the police naming the case "Mission Alibaba."

The police checked the call records for all 97 sim cards

The police checked the call records for all 97 sim cards to identify the location of the accused. The multiple SIM cards delayed the investigation, but the cops were finally able to detect the location of the burglars.

The location was found to be in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP), following which, teams of policemen made rounds of Amroha and Bijnor in UP to search for the accused using the data that they had collected during the investigation.

The detection officers dressed as postmen

Instead of dressing as normal civilians, the detection officers dressed as postmen and fruit vendors to blend into the crowd. They disguised themselves in Delhi and Noida to search for the accused.

They soon received confirmation that the accused were hiding in Greater Noida, after which the cops enlisted the help of the UP police and arrested them.

The arrested accused have been identified as Salman Ansari, Haider Ali Saifi, and Khushal Verma. The police recovered gold worth Rs 18 lakh from the arrested individuals. A case has been registered under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) sections for theft, trespassing, and housing breaking.