Three people have been arrested in India following a brazen 70 million rupee ($800,000, 600,000 pound) robbery in which armed men posing as central bank employees robbed an ATM cash van.
Police in southern Bengaluru on Saturday said they had solved the case and recovered 57.6 million rupees stolen three days ago.
“An investigation is on to find out the remaining amount,” Bengaluru police commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh told reporters.
Singh later told the BBC that three suspects had been detained. He added, “We are looking for two to three more people.”
Those arrested included Gopal Prasad, an employee of cash transport company CMS, J Xavier, a former CMS employee, and Annappa Naik, a local police officer.
The robbery took place in broad daylight in Bengaluru’s Lalbagh area.
The thieves pretended to be Reserve Bank of India employees. They stopped the transport vehicle, saying they had to check the documents to pay that much money.
The vehicle’s cashier and two security guards were told to get into the SUV, and one of the gang members took control of the van, police said.
Police said the gang switched vehicles, used fake number plates and chose locations with minimal CCTV exposure to move cash boxes.
A massive search began on Wednesday with more than 200 police officers deployed across Karnataka and the neighboring states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Goa.
Detectives are investigating CMS’ role and possible violations of cash transfer guidelines, Singh said.
“Vans should not follow the same route and timing repeatedly to be predictable,” he added.
