How Dombivli heist was plotted over 1 year

Altaf Shaikh the vault custodian of Integrated Currency Management Centre of ICICI Bank in Dombivli spent nearly 365 days planning the heist of the year Employed for nine years he knew every detail of the security system which he evaluated and found the flaws On the day of the heist he deactivated the alarm removed hard disks of all cameras and stole Rs 34 crore from the vaultPolice said it is still not clear whether he had been hiding in the vault room before and after executing the heist or if he had help from any of the insidersThey said that no one is allowed inside the Integrated Currency Management Centre after office hours or on holidaysBut Altaf Shaikh managed to beat all security measures and steal from the vault which is secured with biometrics for entry Police are investigating to crack the missing details and are on the lookout for AltafNo one is allowed to access the vault after working hours ie 630 pm But on the night of July 9 Altaf manages to get inside It remains a mystery how He deactivates the alarm for two hours from 11 pm1 am removes hard drives of 10 of the 16 cameras near the vault and opens the highly secure vault located in the basementHe starts taking out the cash mostly the bundles of Rs 2000 and takes Rs 3420 crore in totalHe unscrews an AC duct no bigger than the size of a small laptop and throws the bundles out The duct leads to the back of the building where therersquos a heap of garbage Police say the employees found the cash covered with tarpaulinOn Monday after almost 30 hours Altaf calls his three accomplicesmdashIsrar Abrar Qureshi 33 Shamshad Ahmed Khan 33 and Anuj Giri 30 all residents of Mumbra They leave in a Tempo with Rs 580 crore but are caught on a CCTV camera of the bank helping police catch them later and recover Rs 58 crore from themLater in the day the vault manager arrives and goes for his first job of the daymdashcheck whether backup of 90 daysrsquo CCTV camera footage is intact and find them missing He calls the technician who informs him that hard drives of cameras around the vault are missing All bank officials are rushed to the vault and they start countingPolice are also called and they seal the building and instruct the 50 bank employees to not leave the premises until further order It takes them around two days to count the cash in the vault and realise that Rs 34 crore was missing On Wednesday the entire building is searched and Rs 22 crore under tarpaulin is foundAll this while Altaf is in the bank helping in the probe He is spooked when he hears a few employees mention that footage of the 10 CCTV cameras are on the cloud He realises he has no option but to runAltaf claims he is briefly stepping outside for a smoke and disappears with Rs 64 crore He has switched off his phone police say adding that neither the bank employees nor they know yet whether Altaf was on the premises since the day of the heistCity saw 2 heists in rsquo21gtgt In December last year two masked men entered the SBIrsquos Dahisar branch and robbed R25 lakh in cash after firing at a contractual employee killing him After killing Sandesh Gomane 25 the duo threatened the bank cashier and fled with the cash Mumbai police arrested cousins Vikas Yadav 19 and Dharmendra Yadav 21 from Dahisar East with the help of their sniffer doggtgt In July last year the former manager of ICICI bankrsquos Virar East branch killed the then deputy manager and grievously injured the cashier in an attempted robbery The accused Anil Dubey 35 who had worked at the bank for 15 months tried to flee with gold ornaments worth R338 crore stolen from the bankrsquos locker However he was caught by the people outside and handed over to the police Dubey was aware that past 730 pm there would be only a few employees in the bank while the morning security guard would leave by 7 pm and the night guard arrived at 9 pm He had lost money in stock market and in different business venturesgtgt In November 2017 a gang of criminals dug a 30feet tunnel and looted cash and jewellery worth R343 crore from the Sanpada branch of Bank of Baroda The gang dug a tunnel from a nearby shop between November 10 and November 12 and looted 27 lockers The heist came to light only after the weekend when the bank opened on Monday Police arrested over 10 people