Police arrested eight more people involved in looting Dutch Bangla Bank Limited’s (DBBL) money and recovered Tk 2.54 crore on Sunday.

The amount is out of Tk 11.25 crore looted from a microbus operated by a security firm at Uttara in Dhaka on its way to refill ATM booths of the bank.

DB teams conducted raids in different areas of Dhaka, Sylhet and Sunamganj and arrested them.

They recovered the cash from their possession, DMP Additional Commissioner (DB) Harun or Rashid said at a press conference at DMP Media Centre on Sunday.

He said a total of Tk 6.43 crore has been recovered in two phases so far. The members of the criminal gang had been following the Money Plant Link Pvt Ltd cash van for a long time.

Harun said, "We are conducting drives in various places in the incident of the robbery of DBBL’s Tk 11.25 crore. The drive is still ongoing. On the evening of the incident, a team of DB police conducted a raid in the Khilkhet area of the capital and recovered Tk 3.89 crore."

After that, on the basis of various sources and intelligence activities, on Saturday night (March 11), Mirpur DB and Uttara DB separately conducted raids in various places, including Dhaka and Sunamganj, and arrested eight people involved in the robbery.

Police also arrested Akash and Sagar from Uttara and found Tk 1.07 crore at their home while also seizing the Hiace microbus used for the heist. Another team from the Detective Branch carried out an operation in Sunamganj and arrested Badrul Alam, Mizanur Rahman, Sanai Mia and Enamul Haque Badsha over their suspected involvement in the robbery.

During the initial interrogation, the arrestees said that a microbus was hired to go to Sylhet on March 8. According to the robbers, when the driver came near the Kurmitola bus stand, they tied his legs and hands, put him in the back of the car, and took control of that car.

Harun said after that, they started following the Money Plant Link Pvt Ltd car carrying money of Dutch Bangla Bank. They knew Money Plant Link Pvt Ltd had no security and no weapons to carry the money.

At one stage, the robber gang dropped some people from Money Plant Link Pvt. Ltd’s car, took control of the vehicle and drove away. After that, they pushed the manager from the car and drove their car with the trunk full of money towards an isolated area of 300 feet.

The arrestees said in the interrogation that they broke two trunks of money and filled two sacks and five bags there. They were scared when they saw the money in the remaining two trunks. As there was no bag, they left the money in the trunk and ran away.

He said there were no armed security guards in the van. Money Plant Limited had never informed the police about their service, although they had carried it on for a long time.

Earlier on Thursday morning, Tk 11.25 crore was robbed from a vehicle of Money Plant Link Private Limited carrying Dutch-Bangla Bank’s money at 11 No Road in Diabari under Turag Thana in the capital.

Later, Tk 3.89 crore was recovered from Uttara a few hours after the snatching incident.