New Delhi: Delhi Police today morning arrested the driver of a cash van who fled with Rs 22.5 crore from southeast Delhi's Govindpuri yesterday evening.
According to police, the driver, identified as Pradeep Shukla (35), was arrested in Okhla.
Shukla was caught in a warehouse close to the place where the van was found abandoned last night, police said, adding that Rs 11,000 have been seized from him.
The incident was reported in the evening when the armed guard accompanying the van transporting the money asked the driver to stop the vehicle near Govindpuri Metro station so that he could relieve himself by the roadside.
The driver told the guard that he would wait for him in a lane nearby and was last seen taking a sharp turn. When the guard returned, the vehicle and the driver were nowhere to be seen, said police.
The cash was intended to refill ATMs of a private bank across southeast Delhi and was under the protection a private security agency.
The guard, Vinay Patel, informed the matter to the branch concerned of the private bank and bank authorities immediately called up police.
Personnel from at least two subdivisions of Delhi Police's southeast 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.
Police traced the van fitted with a GPS tracker system near the Okhla industrial area. The bag inside a metal box containing the cash was missing.
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.
