Conman involved in racket arrested

A conman who had cheated an employee at a gold jewellery shop in Negombo by pretending to sell his pawned gold and later escaped with Rs. 300,000 stolen from the jewellery shop was arrested by the Negombo, Kochchikade police yesterday.

According to the Police, the conman had first approached the jewellery shop claiming that he wanted to sell his gold jewellery pawned at a bank in Kochchikade. He then brought a proposal that if the shop owner could redeem the pawned gold, he would sell them to the shop for a cheaper price. The shop owner had agreed to the proposal because as he suggested, the deal would have been more beneficial to the shop owner.

The conman then drove to the bank in his own car with an employee of the jewellery shop who had the Rs. 300,000/- cash to recover the gold.

The police said the conman before arriving at the bank, had suddenly stopped his car, sprayed the jewellery shop employee with an unidentified liquid, threw him out of the car and left with the cash.

Based on the complaint, the Kochchikade Police has started an investigation and arrested the suspect and seized Rs. 295,000 of the stolen cash and three cars belonging to the suspect.

SSP Saman Segera speaking to the media said, there have been many complaints about similar incidents around the country and he requested the public to be careful about online advertisements regarding assistance to redeem pawned gold jewellery. (Prasad Muthukuda and Piyumi Fonseka)