Less than five days after he fled with a van containing nearly Rs 4.25 crore from Virar, the driver of the cash logistics firm was arrested from a village in Ahmednagar district on Tuesday.
While the police recovered a major part of the stolen booty, two more men landed into the police net for their involvement in the daring multi-crore robbery.
According to the police, the driver identified as-Rohit Baban Aaru ( 26) had driven off the van when the security guards alighted with a trunk containing cash to be loaded in an ATM kiosk in the Bolinj area of Virar at around 5 am on 12, November. A case under section 381 of the IPC was registered at the Arnala coastal police station.
The Crime Branch unit of the Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar Police Commissionerate teamed up with their Arnala and Virar counterparts to launch a massive manhunt under the supervision of Commissioner Sadanand Date and Additional Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Patil to track the van and nab the culprits. Two days later, the police team found the van abandoned in the Kalyan Phata area of Thane district on 14, November.
While a person identified as Akashay Prabhakar Mohite (24) was arrested, the police recovered more than Rs. 2.33 crore from the van which had been left behind by Rohit Aaru as he fled with cash amounting more than Rs.1.88 crore.
After rounds of sustained interrogation Mohite revealed that Aaru had fled with the cash to Ahmednagar on a bike.
After this, the police teams immediately left for Ahmednagar and apprehended Aaru and his other accomplice identified as-Chandrakant Gulab Gaikwad alias Babusha (41). Both were found to be in possession of more Rs. 1.88 crore, a 350 cc motorcycle worth Rs. 1.40 lakh and a mobile phone.
The police successfully managed to recover a total of Rs. 4.22 crore out of the Rs. 4.25 crore stolen by the trio. The accused is suspected to have tampered with the GPS tracking system in the van.
Further investigations were on.
