Sharjah: Police have arrested one suspect and are hunting for the four other members of a gang who have allegedly stolen electrical cables worth Dh164,000 from a warehouse in Sharjah, officials said on Wednesday.
One of the suspects was trapped by employees of the company as the gang was sneaking out cables at around 3am at Safe Line Electrical & Mechanical LLC’s warehouse in Sharjah Industrial Area on Monday.
An official from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) told Gulf News that the suspects stole cables kept in the backyard of the warehouse.
The police have formed a team to track down and arrest the remaining culprits.
A company representative told Gulf News: “For several days, the staff had found unusual movements in the backyard of the warehouse. The employees decided to lay a trap to bust the gang. The CCTV footage of the previous days were reviewed to understand the modus operandi of the culprits. The gang had studied the warehouse and had team members deployed at different angles to spot any threats. Two suspects were standing on a footbridge and kept a watch while two others cut the cables while a van waited outside.”
The warehouse is one of the biggest storage facility of electrical cables which have immense value due to their high copper content. The thieves were sneaking out cables by cutting them into smaller pieces for easy transportation. During the operations in the past six-seven days, the robbers had managed to sneak out a good amount of cables in bags. Cables worth Dh164,000 were looted from the warehouse.
It is assumed that the stolen materials have been sold as scrap.
The employees managed to entrap a member of the gang, while the other members fled the scene.
The staff called the police operations room and officers rushed to the warehouse and took the Pakistani suspect into custody.
The suspect told the police that he had entered the country on a visit visa and had been stealing cables for Dh100 for each operation.
Police investigation is ongoing.
