2 senior citizens lose gold chains to conmen

Pune: Two conmen, posing as police personnel, stole gold chains worth Rs 2.60 lakh from two senior citizens. The cheating happened at Narhe and Pashan on Monday night and Tuesday morning.A 75-year-old woman from Pashan was cheated by two motorcycle-borne conmen on Tuesday morning while out for a walk near her home. The duo posed as policemen and warned her about recent chain-snatching incidents in the area. "They told her to remove her gold chain and keep it safely. Offering help, they pretended to wrap it in paper," an officer from Baner police said. After they left, the woman found two metal rings in the paper instead of her gold chain worth Rs 1.70 lakh.In a similar case, a 75-year-old man was targeted late Monday night in Narhe. Around 10.30pm, two men approached him near his house and advised him to remove his gold chain due to rising thefts. When he complied, they took the chain worth Rs 90,000, claiming to wrap it in paper. "After they left, he found the chain missing and lodged a complaint," a Narhe police officer said.A crime branch officer said that the police have checked the CCTV footage from both the spots and suspected that the same duo was involved in the cheating. "We are working on some clues," the officer said.