Duplicate keys help thief steal Rs15.22 lakh from bank

A man, wearing a helmet and gloves, sneaked into the Union Bank of India’s Dadar (West) branch using a duplicate set of keys and stole Rs15.22 lakh on Friday evening.

The closed-circuit television camera caught the robber cleaning out the cash box and even trying to open the bank lockers, where customers keep their valuables and documents. He was inside the bank premises for almost 30 minutes.

The incident took place around 8.30pm on Friday, after all the employees at the bank’s Shivaji Park branch had left for the day. But the theft was discovered at 8.15am the next day when Vishal Kadam, a housekeeping staff member, came to clean the premises.

When he found the bank’s main door open, he immediately called out to the watchman, Pradeep Amre. The duo entered the bank and found the place had been ransacked and the cash box empty. They called up the bank manager, who informed the Shivaji Park police.

The police questioned Amre as well as Pramod Patil, the watchman at the bank’s ATM centre.

While Amre told the police that he gets off work at 4.30pm every day, Patil, who mans the ATM centre from 10pm to 6am every day, said he had not seen anything suspicious on Friday night.

“We have recorded the statements of the housekeeping staff, the watchmen and the bank staff, including the branch manager,” said senior police inspector Suresh Unawane of the Shivaji Park police station.

The police will now scrutinise the CCTV footage of the robbery for leads on the identity of the robber.