Raiganj, Nov. 23: A man from Calcutta was caught in Raiganj, North Dinajpur, where he had put up in a hotel and was part of a gang that specialised in tricking people and snatching purses.

Police said they threw around paper bundles that looked like wads of notes to distract victims and snatched their purses.

Sukumar Roy of Dum Dum Cantonment and Molin Das of Kalyani in Nadia were caught by local people today when they were trying to flee with a bag containing Rs 30,000.

Cloth merchant Najrul Abu Sholey said: “I was leaving the bus stand when someone called me from behind. A man pointed at a bundle of Rs 100 notes lying on the road. He said it had fallen from my bag, picked it up and told me to count the bundle. I instinctively handed my bag to him and started counting the money. The man started running.”

Najrul soon realised that the bundle consisted of blank paper strips. Only two of the four men in the gang could be caught.

The duo told the police they came here three days ago. Wads of blank papers of the size of hundred-rupee notes were found in their hotel room. “We usually target towns. Here we did not get a suitable target for three days,” Molin told the police.

The gang, he said, had been at work for a year. The police said they had got the names of the others in the gang.