PANJIM: This is a crime with a twist and twisted identities. Crooks in khaki, pretending to be Crime Branch officials, have looted people by first advising them not to wear jewellery due to a rise in thefts and then looting their jewellery.

A gang of imposters posing as policemen from the Crime Branch is active in Goa, as in the past few days, senior citizens have been robbed of their gold chains and ornaments in three separate incidents reported across the State.

The latest incident occurred at St Cruz during the second week of June, wherein the victim Richard Fernandes, a septuagenarian, was robbed of his gold chain and ring worth Rs 7-8 lakh by men who posed as police officials.

“I was stopped by the fake police personnel, who showed me a police ID card. They spoke in Hindi and told me there is an order not to wear gold ornaments for the next two days while roaming around as incidents of thieves looting people at knifepoint have been reported. I believed them and was robbed,” Richard explained.

“The vehicle had no number plate, which left me with no vital details of the two-wheeler on which the thieves arrived,” he added.

Fernandes said, “One of the thieves wore khaki pants and showed fake ID cards of being a police official. They intimidated me and made me believe they were police.”

The police said that they have not received any complaint of such incidents but some policemen speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that this is a gang that strikes in intervals of one or two months and vanishes later.

It is pertinent to note that there have been two other incidents of unknown persons riding on motorcycles posing as Crime Branch police officials and robbing pedestrians.

Earlier, a woman tourist was robbed of her valuables in an incident reported at Old Goa. In this incident, a woman robbed the victim’s valuables by cutting open the purse.

Another incident took place at Ribandar, wherein a pedestrian was robbed of his gold ornaments.