Representative image for a burglar.
Credit: iStock Photo
Bengaluru: A brief prison stay literally opened the doors to a trail of over 50 burglaries for a habitual offender.
The Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths arrested the 44-year-old habitual offender Prakash alias Balaji, who has been active since 2004 and involved in 53 cases.
Prakash was arrested in 2006 for an alleged theft and was placed in judicial custody, where he met an interstate habitual offender.
“During a short stint in jail, he got close to an inmate who taught him the lock-breaking trick using silver foil. After coming out, Prakash started using the trick,” the officer said.
According to the officer, he mastered the trick by trial and error and needed careful observation and just 10 minutes to open any lock.
Prakash had a bunch of keys of different shapes and would wrap one of them with silver foil before inserting it into the dead bolt of the lock.
He would observe the door lock, decide on a key from the bunch, and pick out the one whose shape was resembled that of the dead bolt.
He then pulled out the key and observed the impressions on the foil. He then cut the key accordingly and unlocked the door.
He roamed the city and zeroed in on houses that were locked for prolonged periods.
“We are yet to ascertain if he was ever convicted, but as far as we know, he was never proven guilty,” the officer added.
In a recent house break-in case filed at Bandepalya police station, the CCB’s Organised Crime Wing (OCW) officers arrested Prakash from central Bengaluru’s Cubbonpet. However, he never stayed at one place and kept shifting to avoid drawing the police’s attention.
On arresting Prakash, the police learnt that he was on the HSR Layout and Mico Layout police list of habitual offenders. He has been in jail many times and in all, spent about two years in prison.
According to the police, Prakash got out of prison just over a month ago on bail for an alleged house break-in theft. He allegedly broke the locks of six houses in a span of 40 days. He was arrested on May 5 following a lead given by a police informant.
The police have seized valuables worth Rs 27 lakh from Prakash.