Cracking cases with cuisine: Uncovering the surprising connection between food and fugitives
Goa, Delhi’s favourite holiday destination, with criminals using a north Indian restaurant as cover, seems perfect for the portly private eye.
Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing, which carried out this real-life operation last August, must have had no problem getting volunteers. All they knew was that the targets, a couple accused of embezzling more than Rs 4 crore, had taken cover running a restaurant in North Goa with ‘Rasoi’ in its name.
So, to apprehend the criminals, the team booked into a hotel and ordered from every restaurant with Rasoi in its name. We’re told that the orders were lavish — shahi paneer and naan are mentioned, but there must have been much more — presumably to ensure the restaurant delivered directly, rather than through a delivery app. They then followed the delivery guy back and finally, on the fifth order, hit gold at a restaurant named Aunty ki Rasoi.
But who knew Goa even had so many Rasoi restaurants? A quick search shows Rasoi the Kitchen (Calangute), Punjabi Rasoi (Baga), Rasoi Ghar (Penha de Franca), Rasoi ka Funda (Dona Paula), Shantadurga’s Rasoi (Mapusa) and more. It shows how important Indian tourists are now. But why couldn’t the team just visit rather than placing orders? Also, did rules restrict them to vegetarian, or could they have ordered butter chicken as well?
One obvious insight from this is to be suspicious about anyone serving — or ordering — paneer in Goa. Another is that taking cover in restaurants, or anything in food service, isn’t ideal since it requires
