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Thane: Two unidentified individuals posed as crime branch officials and tricked a 70-year-old man into removing his gold ornaments worth Rs 70,000 in Thane district, police said on Monday.
The incident occurred on August 24 at around 11:15 am, when the victim, Damodar Patil, was travelling in a car on the Nashik-Mumbai highway near Lodha Dham.
The suspects stopped Patil's car under the pretext of security checking and instructed him to remove his gold ornaments, wrap them in paper, and place them in the car's dashboard drawer.
While engaging Patil in conversation, the duo switched the wrapped ornaments with a package containing stones. The men then left the scene, and Patil later discovered the deception when he checked the package, police stated.
An FIR has been registered at the Narpoli police station on a complaint lodged by Patil under sections 318(4) (cheating), 204 (personating a public servant), and 3(5) (a criminal act done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS). The police are investigating the incident, but no arrests have been made so far.