It is customary for airlines across the country to allow people in wheelchairs, usually senior citizens, to board flights first. It’s indeed fair practice and a polite gesture. You are old, tentative, you get to your seat, and struggle to put your cabin luggage in the overhead bin. And then you slump down in your seat. You expect some water and a cold towel, but what you don’t expect is Rajesh Kapoor from Paharganj.
That man has been marking old couples for a while, using priority boarding, to get into the aircraft just after senior citizens. As they sit down, Kapoor gets up and quickly opens their suitcase and runs his hands through, grabbing whatever valuables he can. He quickly zips the luggage back and sits down just in time before the pilot’s announcement, and enjoys the cirrus clouds at 35,000 feet, a little later.
Kapoor had been doing this across different flight sectors till April 11. That’s when a woman, travelling from Hyderabad to Delhi, complained to the police that jewellery worth INR7 lakh had been stolen from her handbag. Some investigating officer in Delhi joined the dots. Because on February 2, another passenger had complained to the police that valuables worth INR20 lakh had gone missing.
Kapoor’s risk-adjusted returns
Kapoor was arrested on May 13 after the Delhi Police was able to nail him with the help of airport security cameras, airline data, and call records. He took as many as 200 flights in less than one year alone, sometimes travelling multiple times in a day using his dead brothers’ credentials and phone number. He would keep his own phone switched off, turning it on only once in a while.
If Kapoor paid INR7,500 for his ticket on average, he may have spent nearly INR15 lakh on these 200 flights, but the returns in just four cases of theft directly nailed to him already are worth nearly INR1 crore, according to police data. Assuming he only got INR0.50 per rupee from his fence (who “bought” the stolen material), it would still be INR50 lakh for Kapoor. That’s a 3X return on investment in two years. That’s an eye-popping number, but it is also criminal, unfortunately for Kapoor.
Kapoor has deployed his theft money well. He owns a hotel called Ricky Deluxe in Paharganj (backpacker’s paradise), has a money-changing business, and a mobile phone-repair shop in Delhi.
Modus operandi: simple and swift
Kapoor used to board connecting flights like those from Delhi which carry passengers arriving from busy international hubs including Chicago and New York to Indian cities such as Amritsar, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru.
Senior citizens are often given priority boarding, so Kapoor would also pay to get priority boarding. During this phase of the flight, there are very few people in the cabin and the overhead bins are all open. Once there, Kapoor would select a target and slide her handbag backwards, rummage through it, steal items of use to him, and then slide it back. Kapoor even dared to ask some passengers who had kept their bags on their lap to keep them in the bin.
Most elderly people on such connecting flights are already hassled. They have gone through long immigration and other checks and that too after concluding long flights, potentially returning home after meeting their children who have settled in foreign countries including the US. Kapoor used to take advantage of their exhaustion.
“A thief can take your bag from the conveyor belts also. Those cases are very common. But I have never heard of this modus operandi before. This person seems to be a professional,” said a senior airline official who did not want to be named.
One of Air India’s senior cabin crew, too, says he has never heard of such a trick on a domestic flight ever. “On international [routes], there is an entire cartel. We never used to switch off the lights at night on Hong Kong flights from Delhi and Mumbai because of similar thefts,” he said.
But why Hong Kong alone?
“Many diamond merchants fly on this route,” this crew member added.
Could there be a cartel involved in this case, too? Possibly, airline officials themselves? How is it possible that Kapoor used to know which would be an important connecting flight accurately while does not appear to be from the airline or a travel agent background?
Speaking to ET Prime, the deputy commissioner of police at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Usha Rangnani, did not rule out this angle. She said the police is investigating if there was some connection, like a common crew on the flights he took etc., though the process is still at a “nascent stage”.
“He is a habitual offender and is also into satta and gambling,” added Rangnani. “Since we have caught him, so many more people have reached out to me alone saying their things were also stolen. We are investigating this further.”
ET Prime readers who are of the slightly older vintage will remember how when we travel on overnight trains, we tend to use small padlocks and a chain to secure luggage. On trains, luggage theft is common. Kapoor honed his stealing skills exactly on these “practice pitches”.
Kapoor began his thefts in 2005, when he was around 21, travelling on India’s massive train network and stealing from people’s bags as they slept in peace. Such thefts are common because one can see the brisk sale of chains and locks on most of the country's train stations.
Kapoor’s work-from-home period
Kapoor also took a break from stealing around 2018, ostensibly.
It is quite possible that during this “sabbatical” Kapoor tried his hand at stealing from the very guests that stayed at his hotel, Ricky Deluxe, also called Ricky Dx. His family lived on the top floor of this hotel.
“Worst (hotel)...our money was stolen from the room while it was locked...Can't recommend anyone to visit ever again...In an emergency you can't expect any staff to cooperate,” Omkar Kakeru wrote in his review in 2019, recalling his harrowing tale like most of the 167 reviewers of this one-star MakeMyTrip-rated property.
Many even called the hotel a “sanctuary of rats” which extorted extra money on check-outs. Some were even thrown out of the hotel before the check-out for no fault of theirs.
“Worst experience as owner’s family started fighting with each other and asked everyone to leave the hotel. It was difficult for us to manage the accommodation in the evening,” Shivam Tiwari wrote in his 2023 review.
Kapoor’s sabbatical was soon over.
Criminal imagination takes a flight
In 2022, Kapoor decided it was time to upgrade. He shifted his theft operations to flights, almost exclusively. He only started taking what the Delhi Police calls “premium” airlines like Air India and Vistara. Both are full-service airlines and fly abroad with the former going all the way to the US and the latter only to Europe.
Why did Kapoor shift to flights if he was doing well from 2005-22 on trains?
The first airline official quoted above said it could simply be that he became too “gutsy” from the windfall he made from train rides.
What was the cabin crew doing?
There is also the question of cabin crew who are supposed to be the gatekeepers of passenger luggage on flights. A senior airline official said this also reinforces his recent belief that some airline crew appear to have become less vigilant.
“I was travelling on a domestic flight earlier this month and a business-class corporate executive had to speak out so loudly to get the crew to get him his coat. This was after the aerobridge had already docked on the plane,” this official said, referring to the practice of crew returning the coats etc., to business-class passengers well before the flight lands. “Something is wrong with the alertness levels of the crew these days.”
Whether these maverick heists from cabin baggage before everyone boards were Kapoor’s alone or that of a cartel would only be known as the investigation progresses.
For now, Air India and Vistara have lost one of their “frequent fliers”.
Possibly Kapoor, like the stars of the hit movie Jab We Met, would have done well to stick to the train because as he may now find out, there is nothing “Deluxe” about a Delhi Police jail cell.
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