In a bizarre incident, a 40-year-old ‘frequent flyer’ took about 200 flights — 3-4 sorties in a day at times — with the sole purpose to steal from co-passengers. He even managed to buy a hotel in central Delhi making complete use of his ‘frequent flyer miles’.
A report in Times of India quoted police as saying that Rajesh Kapoor, who flew around 200 times, in a year was finally caught when he recently targeted two people flying to the US via Delhi and allegedly took away jewellery worth lakhs of rupees.
This theft prompted police to begin a hunt, which led officers to find out that Kapoor would mostly stalk passengers of connecting flights and generally target elderly women carrying handbags. “He assumed that these targets would not notice the theft immediately,” DCP (airport) Usha Rangnani was quoted, adding that the 40-year-old meticulously planned his every move.
Rangnani further said that the 40-year-old accused used the identity documents of his deceased brother while booking tickets. He then struck either before completion of boarding or while the aircraft was mid-air.
“Exploiting the chaos of boarding, Kapoor would secretly rifle through overhead cabins, carefully assessing and stealing valuables from handbags of unsuspecting passengers who would be settling into their seats. His method, carefully timed to coincide with the distractions inherent in the boarding process, allowed him to operate undetected,” the DCP was quoted.
Elaborating further on Kapoor’s theft style, Rangnani said that if the target sat at a distance, Kapoor would even request the crew members to change his seat so that he could sit near the person.
According to TOI, the 40-year-old man had been allegedly operating since 2005. For many years, he allegedly stole from passengers in AC coaches of trains. Later, he switched to flights.
Kapoor landed in the net following police complaints from two passengers in a span of two months. While a US citizen travelling on an Amritsar-Delhi Air India flight approached cops on Feb 22, a Hyderabad-Delhi passenger of an Air India flight lodged a complaint on April 11. Both said they had lost jewellery kept in their cabin bags, the report stated.
The publication further mentioned that the police officers analysed the passenger manifest of these flights and scanned footage of over 100 CCTV cameras to finally zero down on the suspect.
Kapoor’s phone number was obtained from the airlines, but turned out to be fake. The police, through technical surveillance, then found out his original number and the location was traced to Paharganj. It was found that the suspect switched on his handset only for a brief period.
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