Delhi Police on Friday worked out the biggest cash heist case of the national Capital within 12 hours and arrested the driver who made off with Rs22.5 crore of Axis Bank stashed in a cash replenishment van.
Police said they solved “the biggest misappropriation-ever from a cash van in the Capital’s history” by recovering the money from a godown in the Okhla Industrial Area phase-III in the wee hours of Friday.
A source in Delhi Police said that the driver of the cash van belonging to SIS, Pradeep Shukla, had spent around Rs11,500 from the stolen money to pay for some articles purchased in connection with the heist, roasted chicken and alcohol. The police arrested the 35-year-old driver after they raided the godown around 4 am. Nine cash boxes containing approximately Rs22.50 crore have been recovered, said DCP (South-East) MS Randhawa.
“The accused has confessed that he was unhappy with the pay he was getting and had been looking for a suitable opportunity to steal the money even though he had no concrete plan ready,” said a senior police officer. With the aid of CCTV cameras installed all over the city, the police successfully tracked down the driver. The driver allegedly pulled off the heist all by himself and went and hid in the godown. It turns out that the guard of the godown was the driver’s friend.
“Shukla was spotted late in the night in Okhla with the aid of some CCTV footage that police had collected.
Police tightened security in the area after that and started interrogating people in the entire phase-III to get a lead,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (south-eastern Range) RS Krishnia. After an intensive search, the godown was raided and the driver was found with the boxes and arrested, Krishnia added.
“Shukla knew the guard of the godown and requested him to let him stay for the night. On being asked about the boxes, Shukla told the caretaker that they contained some important papers which he had to take to the firm early in the morning. The caretaker had no involvement in the crime,” said a senior police official.
“The heist took place in the afternoon at around 3.30 pm on Thursday when the van, belonging to a private security firm SIS, was going to the Okhla branch of Axis Bank. The heist took place when the armed guard Vinay Patel, who was accompanying the van asked the driver to stop the vehicle nearGovindpuri Metro Station so that he could relieve himself by the roadside.
“The driver told the unsuspecting guard that he would wait for him in a lane nearby and was last seen taking a sharp turn. When Patel reached the lane where Shukla was supposed to be waiting for him, the vehicle and the driver were nowhere in sight, so he called the driver. The driver told him that he had to keep moving as the police did not allow him to park the van there so it would take him ten minutes to come back. When he did not return even after ten minutes, Patel tried his number again and found that the number had been switched off,” said Krishnia.
The guard first reached the SIS branch in Okhla and explained the scenario to the manager after which they tried to look for the driver but once the situation seemed to have got out of hand, they called the police two hours after the incident, added Krishnia.
Prima facie it seems that there was no larger conspiracy behind the heist as Shukla is suspected to be the only culprit behind the incident, said police. The accused was employed as driver in the SIS firm for the past three months, said police.