London Evening Standard/London
A father yesterday told how he was handcuffed by two burglars disguised as police officers who ransacked his house and made off with hundreds of pounds in cash.
Ravi Patel, 55, was restrained after answering the door to two men in police helmets and high-visibility jackets who claimed to be acting on a drugs tip-off.
One of the men forcefully locked Patel’s hands behind his back before threatening to do the same to his wife Krishna, 36, if she did not co-operate.
The men claimed they had received a tip-off that drugs were being dealt from the £600,000 house in Wembley, before beginning a search, finding £800 in an upstairs bedroom.
Patel’s 15-year-old daughter and her friend were playing with his one-year-old son in the room next door, oblivious to the burglary. The pair made their escape, leaving Patel in the handcuffs, which can be bought online for £35.
Patel, an auditor, said: “There was a knock on the door and these two guys were there in full uniform, very convincing, right down to their shoes which were polished up quite nicely. There was a fair bit of detail they had put into their disguises.
“They said someone has reported drug dealing from this property and I just thought to myself, ‘What is going on here?’ But the uniforms made me not think anything of it.
“I was going to call my wife who was next door when they pushed through the door and one of them put handcuffs on me before sitting me down on the sofa in the lounge.
“It just all happened so fast. They said, ‘We have to do this for your own safety’. They told my wife she had to stay downstairs or they would do the same to her. It didn’t dawn on me what was going on until they went outside to get something from the car, but never came back.
“That’s when I said to my wife, ‘We’ve been had’ and called 999.” The men are described as black and aged between 20 and 25, about 6ft tall and clean shaven. They wore police helmets, white shirts, black trousers, black gloves and high-vis jackets with “Police” on them.
Patel said: “I was really upset. I’m very protective of my children. I was more scared for them thinking if I had not been home earlier my daughter would have been home alone.”
