India witnessed its own Louvre heist after armed men robbed $800,000 (INR 70 million) in the southern state of Karnataka in broad daylight.
As per the police, a massive operation has been launched to find the group of men who posed as officials from India's central bank and robbed a cash van transporting the money.
The robbery occurred on Wednesday afternoon. Six men in an SUV stopped a cash transport van on a busy road as it was moving money between bank branches, Bengaluru police commissioner Seemant Kumar Singh told the BBC.
A driver, a cash custodian and two armed security guards were in the van when the robbers introduced themselves as officials from the Reserve Bank of India and said they needed to verify if they had the correct documents to transport such a huge amount of money.
The gang told the cash custodian and guards to leave their weapons in the van and get into the SUV, while the driver was instructed to continue driving with the cash, police said.
Moreover, the SUV followed the cash van for a few kilometres before the gang forced everyone out of the vehicles and transferred the cash at gunpoint, and fled.
With little CCTV coverage in the area, police are investigating if the gang used multiple vehicles in the operation.
The SUV used in the heist had a fake number plate and a sticker that read "Government of India", a police official told the BBC on condition of anonymity.
