Mastermind behind Amethyst gold heist arrested

The police on Friday arrested an employee of Amethyst, who masterminded the Chengalpattu toll plaza gold heist, in which a gang posed as idol wing sleuths and looted gold worth more than Rs 9 crore.

The arrested person was identified as S Vinoth (33) from Mylapore. Vinoth was a computer operator at the Amethyst and he played a pivotal role in the robbery, the police said. Until now, five persons have been arrested and the police are on the lookout for Selvakumar, Arun, Ranjith Kumar and Mani, who have other robbery cases pending against them.

According to the police, Vinoth shared the e-mail id of Kiran Rao, owner of Amethyst, with Selvakumar, Arun, Ranjith Kumar and Mani a few months ago. The group then created a fake mail address in an anonymous name and blackmailed Rao for money through e-mails.

The police added that Rao did not respond to any of the e-mails. Meanwhile, Vinoth came to know that a large quantity of gold is being taken to Madurai for an exhibition and passed the information to others. On April 24, when the group went to a shop near to Amethyst to celebrate Vinoth’s birthday, they drafted a sketch to loot the gold.

Following their plan, the group booked a room in Madurai and started to spy Dayanidhi and other employees. On April 28, the group, except for Vinoth, followed them back to Chennai and looted the gold posing themselves as idol wing cops near the toll plaza at Chengalpattu.

The police said that the gold would be recovered only after arresting Selvakumar, Arun, Ranjith Kumar, and Mani. Previously, the police had arrested Ramesh (33), Ramachandran (32) from Ennore, Manikandan (29) and Mohamed Abbas (27) from Erukkancheri.