The city police on Friday arrested a notorious property offender, who was accused in several theft cases, and 14 members of his gang.
The key accused has been identified as Chukka Sreenu (43), resident of Malkapuram and a DC sheet holder of Malkapuram Police station.
Sreenu a kleptomaniac has been committing offences since 1992 and has about 150 cases against him. He was convicted in 110 cases.
He last served sentence in Visakhapatnam Central Jail in 2012, and on his release he has committed about 51 offences under various police stations such as Kancharapalem, Pendurthi, Gajuwaka, Duvvada, Parawada, Anakapalle (rural), Kakinada (one town) and Arilova.
In the 51 offences he made good with about 2.91 kg of gold ornaments and 6.4 kg of silver articles.
According to DCP (Crime) Shemushi Bajpai, the police have recovered about 1.66 kg of gold and 6 kg of silver.
The other members of the gang including three women have been identified as K Vasu (26), R Nagaraju (40), L Rajasekhar (46), D Suresh (37), M Sudheer Kumar (21), KLV Prasad (24), K Padma (45), K Appalaraju (53), M Lakshmi (40), M Narayanamma (41), D Govind (24), M Santosh Kumar (28), D Venkat (26) and Siva Kumar (35), all residents of various parts of the city.
The main accused Sreenu maintained the gang mainly for support system. He split the gang in four parts (three or four in each team) and made them take houses in four different corners of the city. The team members job was to conduct recee in their areas and inform Sreenu about the locked houses.
Once informed Sreenu would come with his equipment and break open the house and decamp with the booty. He also used his gang members for disposal of the stolen property, said ACP (Crime) Phalguna Rao.
It is learnt the Sreenu was caught by the special police while he was committing a crime.
“We nabbed him after a hot chase of about 2 km. While escaping a couple of his gang members hurled stones on our team and one constable was injured,” said Phalguna Rao.
Once Sreenu was caught, the police team raided the houses where his other team members were residing and arrested them.
