Goa Police nab 3 for robbing Japanese tourist

Panaji, Feb 21 The Goa Police have arrested three persons for allegedly robbing a Japanese tourist while he was holidaying in the coastal state, an official said on Tuesday.

The police had received a complaint through e-mail from Japanese tourist Tatsuki Teramoto, who mentioned that on December 28, 2022, some unknown persons impersonating police officers restrained him and stole his credit cards, debit cards, iPhone, Indian currency of Rs 30,000 and Japanese currency of 1,50,000 Yen.

The accused persons further used the credit cards and debit cards at various stores, causing a loss of Rs 9,43,000 to the complainant.

North Goa Superintendent of Police Nidhin Valsan on Tuesday evening in a press conference said the three persons were arrested from Cochin and Jaipur in Rajasthan.

These arrested individuals have been identified as Raju a.k.a. Wasim Khan, 25; Romy a.k.a. Chandbabu, 33, from Jaipur and Tahir, from Rajasthan.

According to police, the complainant had befriended Raju and Romy while he was in Goa.

The complaint stated that on December 28, while they were returning from market, Raju was smoking Marijuana and the police in plain clothes came on a motorcycle behind them and followed them to their apartment and assaulted them and later confiscated his (complainant's) cell phone and robbed his money from the bag.

"After he reached Japan he sent a complaint through email and Twitter. As the complainant shared their photos on Twitter, they got alerted and went underground and moved to different cities. We sent teams to Cochin, Chennai and Jaipur. However, the accused person who was in Chennai left for Jaipur after our team reached there. We could nab one from Cochin and Raju and Romy both from Jaipur," Valsan said.

The senior police officer said that they are tracing the mastermind behind the incident.

"We assume the involvement of five to six persons in this case. So far we, have apprehended three persons and after questioning them, we will be able to arrest the rest of the accused persons," he said.