Gold heist: Chennai edition

A daring daylight robbery, botched up implementation and patchy unravelling of the crime— the recent heist at the heart of Chennai had all the hallmarks of a plot inspired by OTT shows. While police mopped up the investigation and claimed to have recovered all the loot, their hot pursuit did take them through some unexpected twists and turns

A gang of three — a low-ranking staff member of a loan company, a small-time businessman, and a seller of plantain leaves — sat outside a tea shop after an hour-long workout in a gym at Villivakkam in Chennai on a sunny morning three years ago. An auto driver soon joined them as the conversation picked up. While sipping the tea, one of them wondered aloud about how long he could lead a life with his meagre earnings. Another replied that they should loot a bank and settle down with the wealth. He might have meant it in jest, but somehow that idea caught on. Three years later, it resulted in a bank robbery in a very crowded part of town, in broad daylight.

In retrospect, had they planned it well it might not have been one of the heists to be cracked by the police within a week.

On August 13, a Saturday afternoon, the friends struck at a two-storey building housing a branch of Fed Bank Financial Services, a subsidiary of Federal Bank, on Razak Garden Road at Arumbakkam. The branch offers loans against gold jewellery. It has a strong room with lockers for the custody of the pledged jewellery. Only three staff members — K. Suresh, 30, a branch manager; Vijayalakshmi, 30, a customer service executive; and Murugan, 30, a relationship executive, along with Saravanan, a security guard at the gate — were on duty that day.

Murugan had worked at the Padi branch for a week and reported for duty at the Arumbakkam branch at 9.40 a.m. Suresh and Vijayalakshmi were already present. That day, as it emerged from the police investigation, Murugan was frequently stepping out of the office. At 1.30 p.m., he went out again under the pretext of collecting the mobile phone from a service centre. Half-an-hour later, he returned with a bottle of a ready-to-drink beverage and poured it into two cups for his colleagues. While Vijayalakshmi turned him down, Suresh sipped it and felt mildly giddy soon after.

At 2.10 p.m., Murugan brought in two unidentified persons. One of them brandished a foot-long knife at Vijayalakshmi, who was standing near the strong room, and threatened to slash her neck if she shouted. He pushed her to the wash-room. Then Suresh warned Murugan not to betray the organisation he was working for. Murugan went on to sever the cables of the CCTV recorder and the security alarm system with a small knife. One of his accomplices snatched a bunch of keys for the strong room and a mobile phone from Suresh’s pocket. Then, Murugan and his associate opened the main grill of the strong room, and the vault. The trio took the jewellery stored in 481 covers from the locker and stuffed them in four shoulder bags.

They brandished weapons at the staff and pushed Suresh and Vijayalakshmi behind the grill of the strong room and locked the main door. They took the keys along while leaving the place with the booty. A few minutes later, a customer, named Davidson, walked in and heard the staff screaming from behind the grill in the strong room. He alerted the police. The strong room was opened with another key from the Anna Nagar branch. The guard Saravanan was found lying on the terrace, gagged and his hands and legs tied. The burglars tied him up before committing the crime. Suresh lodged a complaint with the Arumbakkam police. A case was registered under Sections 342 (punishment for wrongful confinement) and 397 (robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt), read with 120 B (criminal conspiracy), of the Indian Penal Code. The police said 31.700 kg of gold jewellery, worth over ₹15 crore, was looted by the trio who fled on two bikes.

As special police teams questioned the bank staff and gathered information, they concluded that Murugan was the main perpetrator. He was one of the four who had planned the crime three years ago at the tea shop.