BENGALURU: In filmi style, a 34-year-old Brazilian national allegedly stole two wristwatches worth over Rs 3.3 lakh from a duty-free store in Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) before flying back home recently. He left the store, saying to the staff “you will never forget me”.
The staff didn’t understand why the accused, Ravi Gama De Sa Ravi, said such a line and realised its meaning after detecting the theft two days later.
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The theft took place at Ethos Summit, a watch boutique on the ground floor of Terminal 2 on Jan 4, but the store staff, Sharanappa Nad, lodged a complaint with KIA police on Jan 13. Ravi walked into the store around 12.50am to buy wristwatches. Store employee Ilayaraja attended to him. Ravi asked Ilayaraja to show him a few models. He selected a Tag Heuer watch and paid the bill for it.
Later, he asked Ilayaraja to show him more watches which cost around US $1000. When Ilayaraja was picking the watches from the showcase, Ravi pocketed a Frederique Constant wristwatch (model no. FC-270N4P6B) worth Rs 94,500. He selected about three costly watches, spending more than an hour in the store. While Ilayaraja was billing the three watches, Ravi had left his passport and boarding pass on the table where Ilayaraja had shown him the watches. On the pretext of picking them up, Ravi stole another Frederique Constant (model no. FC303AT3DNH6) watch worth Rs 2.4 lakh, and kept it in his wallet. Ravi dropped a filmi line that (Ilayaraja) would never forget him and he would be one of his best foreign customers.
Ravi told Ilayaraja that he was getting late for boarding and left the shop in a hurry after paying the bill. The staff put the wristwatches back in the showcase.
Two days later, they were checking the stocks and found two watches were missing. They checked the CCTV footage and found Ravi had stolen them.
A police officer said Ravi bought four watches from the store and paid Rs 8 lakh for them. The worth of the two watches he stole is around Rs 3.3 lakh. His passport number is GJ105516. “We are verifying on which visa he had come to India. He took a flight out of Bengaluru soon after exiting the store at 2.30am. He is already in Brazil and we cannot act against him. If he visits Bengaluru in future, we can act against him,” the officer added.
A case has been registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) section 305 (theft in a dwelling house, or means of transportation or place of worship, etc).
