Three people have been arrested in India after a daring 70 million rupees ($800,000; £600,000) heist in which armed men posing as central bank officials robbed an ATM cash van.
On Saturday, police in the southern city of Bengaluru announced they had cracked the case and recovered 57.6 million rupees of the money stolen three days earlier.
Our investigation is on track to get the remaining amount, Bengaluru police commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh told reporters.
Singh confirmed that three suspects had been detained: Gopal Prasad, an employee of cash transport company CMS; J Xavier, a former CMS worker; and Annappa Naik, a local police constable. He further indicated that they were looking for two to three more suspects.
The robbery, which occurred in broad daylight in the Lalbagh area, involved the thieves pretending to be officers from the Reserve Bank of India. They stopped the transport vehicle, claiming they needed to check paperwork for the large amount of cash.
During the incident, the vehicle's cash custodian and two security guards were coerced into getting into an SUV, while one gang member took control of the cash van. Police reported that the thieves changed vehicles and used fake registration plates, strategically selecting locations with minimal CCTV coverage to transfer the boxes of cash.
A massive manhunt was initiated on Wednesday with over 200 police officers deployed across Karnataka and neighboring states such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Goa.
Detectives are also investigating CMS's operations and any potential violations in their cash transport protocols. Singh indicated that cash transport vehicles should avoid predictable routes and timings to minimize risk.
