In what could turn out to be the biggest cash heist in the national Capital, the driver of a cash transit van allegedly fled with around Rs 22.5 crore from South-East Delhi’s Govindpuri area on Thursday afternoon.
The van, belonging to a private security firm SIS, was going to the Okhla branch of Axis Bank.
The heist took place around 2pm when the armed guard Vinay Patel, who was accompanying the van, asked the driver to stop the vehicle near Govindpuri Metro Station so that he could relieve himself by the roadside.
The driver, identified as Pradeep Shukla, 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.
A shocked Patel, informed the branch of Axis Bank whose cash they were carrying and bank authorities immediately called up police.
According to police, they received a call at about 2 pm on Thursday saying that Pradeep Shukla, the driver of the van carrying money to the Okhla branch of Axis Bank, had fled with the vehicle.
“The guard Vinay Patel told us that at Govindpuri he asked Pradeep to stop the van as he wanted to take a leak. When he returned the driver and the van were nowhere
in sight,” said a senior
police officer.
The bank told the police that they had sent four cash transit vans with a total of
Rs 38 crore from their Vikaspuri branch on Thursday, and the van (Dl 1lK 9189) which was headed towards South-East Delhi was carrying around Rs 22.5 crore.
"There seems to be an insider involvement in the incident," said the police officer, adding, "The bank officials claimed that there was Rs 22.5 crore in the van. They have even shown us a receipt of Rs 10 crore which was generated before leaving from Vikaspuri."
Interestingly, the company has flouted Reserve Bank of India guidelines which clearly state that cash vans can only carry a maximum of Rs 10 crores at a time and the SIS van was ferrying Rs 22.5 crores which is against the rules.
Police said the driver did not have the keys of the caskets in which the money was kept. "Preliminary investigation has revealed the involvement of more than five people in the crime," said the officer.
Personnel from at least two subdivisions of Delhi Police's south-east district were roped in along with a specialised crime team and the cash van was soon recovered from near a petrol pump close to the spot where the accused driver had deserted the guard. However, the boxes containing the cash were missing, said police.
Senior police officials who rushed to the spot after the incident was reported maintained that this was not a case of robbery but criminal breach of trust.
Scores of pickets and police check points were set up across the city and checking was intensified at the borders to track down the accused, said police.
CCTV grabs have been obtained from nearby premises while eyewitnesses are being examined and several teams have been put on the case, police added.
Police said that this could be the biggest cash heist in Delhi after the January 2014 gunpoint robbery of Rs 7.69 crore from a businessman at BRT corridor near Moolchand flyover.
A similar cash heist had taken place in November last year though the culprits in that case were two armed bikers. They had robbed Rs. 1.5 crore from a cash van of Citi bank after shooting its security guard dead on the spot in Kamla Nagar market area.
Many such incidents have taken place in the last few years and in some cases arrests did take place and the stolen cash was recovered.