SHARJAH If someone knocks on your car window to suggest there’s a problem with your vehicle, watch out or you could become victim of a con job. An Indian housewife discovered this the hard way when she was tricked into stepping out of the car and lost her belongings at a Sharjah parking lot on January 31.
Ploy
Al Khan resident Sholy Thankachan, 51, was looking for a parking space near Megal Mall on Sunday evening when a man walked up, saying one of her car tyres were punctured. Sholy fell for the ruse. She got off her car to inspect the puncture but finding nothing amiss returned to her seat only to realise that her handbag was gone. “It all happened in a matter of seconds and by the time I could gather myself and raise an alarm it was too late. Someone had sped off with my bag already,” says the woman from Calicut, Kerala.
Sholy said her bag contained Dh12,000, five credit cards, her driving license, bunch of keys, Samsung smartphone and an iphone 6splus. “I had withdrawn the cash to settle our credit card payments,” rued the mum of three. Sholy said she believed the conman because it was only a week ago that she had replaced the front right tyre of her 4-WD vehicle because of a puncture. “Perhaps that was still playing in my mind even though I had read several newspaper stories about such con jobs,” said Sholy who has lived in Sharjah since 1992 and has been driving for over 22 years.
“The police has launched their investigation but there has been no breakthrough yet. An officer who has seen CCTV footage of the area confirmed that two men were involved - one who distracted me and the other who made away with my handbag. Police said the second man carried a bucket in which he put my bag to avoid rousing any suspicion.”
YOUSPEAK: Have you been a victim of a con job?
