BENGALURU, India — Police in Bengaluru say they have cracked a dramatic cash van robbery in which armed men posing as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) officials made off with ₹70 million (about $800,000) in broad daylight.
On Saturday, Bengaluru Police Commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh told reporters that officers had recovered ₹57.6 million of the stolen money, three days after the heist in the city’s Lalbagh area.
“Our investigation is on track to get the remaining amount,” Singh said, later confirming to the BBC that three suspects have been detained. “We are looking for two to three more,” he added.
Those arrested include:
- Gopal Prasad, an employee of CMS, the private cash logistics company operating the van
- J. Xavier, a former CMS staff member
- Annappa Naik, a serving local police constable
The involvement of both current and former insiders, as well as a police officer, has raised serious questions about security protocols around large cash movements.
How the heist unfolded
According to police, the robbery was executed with meticulous planning.
The gang allegedly:
- Arrived in vehicles with fake number plates
- Wore clothing and carried documents that helped them pass as RBI officers
- Stopped the cash van on the pretext of needing to “check paperwork” for such a large consignment
The van’s cash custodian and two security guards were told to step out and get into an SUV. While they were being held there, one member of the gang quietly took control of the cash van and drove off with boxes of money.
Police say the robbers later switched vehicles and used routes with minimal CCTV coverage to transfer the cash, complicating efforts to track them.
Massive multi-state manhunt
In response, authorities launched a large-scale search on Wednesday, deploying more than 200 officers across Karnataka and neighbouring Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Goa.
Detectives are now probing possible lapses and policy breaches by CMS.
“The vans should not follow the same route and timing repeatedly so as to become predictable,” Commissioner Singh noted, hinting that repeated patterns may have made the vehicle an easier target.
While a significant portion of the stolen funds has been recovered, the search for the remaining suspects — and the missing cash — continues, as investigators piece together how one of the country’s most audacious recent cash van heists was planned and executed.
