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15 Most Famous Robberies in India

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world.

The world over the release of a well-scripted heist movie draws millions to the cinema.

Oftentimes these flicks research real robberies or even have the perpetrators as consultants. Robbery is a crime but in each country, there is always an infamous heist that is etched in the memory of the people.

While digging a tunnel, breaking the locker, and mapping a robbery might sound like a movie script, these things have, in fact, been used to execute heists in real life.

 Netflix’s Money Heist is mind-blowing but wait until you read about these robberies that were executed in India to make a judgment. Let’s go through the 15 epic robberies in India.

Click here to read about famous heists in the world.

1.  Punjab National Bank- Rs 100 Crore.

Illegal tunnel photo by US Customs –

In the daring heist, thieves dug up a 125-feet-long tunnel to a bank in the Sonepat district and broke into 77 lockers decamping with cash, jewelry, and other valuables

This 2014 epic heist will certainly remind you of a movie plot.

The 4 people robbed valuables worth Rs 100 crore.

The robbers dug the tunnel to the bank from a nearby unoccupied house over the weekend.

A couple of days later, police arrested three of the alleged robbers but the mastermind of the robbery was found dead. 

The incident came to light on Monday morning when the bank was opened after a holiday by its manager Devender Malik. The robbery was carried out on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.

According to the then Sonepat’s Superintendent of Police Arun Nehra, the thieves cleaned up 77 of a total of 350 lockers at the bank.

He blamed the bank authorities for not following proper norms mandatory for the storage place where lockers are kept as the floor of the locker room was an ordinary cement floor easily punctured by the robbers.

Almost all of the valuables such as jewelry and bonds were recovered, but most of the cash was never recovered.

2. The Salem – Chennai Express Robbery- Rs 350 Crores

by aditiduttyagi10 –

The Reserve Bank of India was transporting over Rs 350 Crores from the Salem- Chennai Egmore Express in 2016 when a major robbery took place on the moving train.

On the occasion, the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Railway Police were transporting over Rs 350 Crores in soiled notes, which were to be destroyed.

The journey began from Salem, where the two carriages were filled with the notes, and one bogey was full of the RBI officials and the Railway Police

A gang of robbers cut through the roof of the particular coach that had solid cash using a gas burner and managed to steal Rs 5.75 Crores.

However, little did they know that PM Narendra Modi would soon announce the demonetization, rendering the notes invalid.

After two years of intense search, the police team nabbed seven members of the gang. 

According to the investigation the police had bought immovable properties for Rs1.78 crore, in their native villages in Madhya Pradesh.

They also claimed to burn Rs2 crore of the cash as they were unable to deposit it in the bank or use the money.

3. Movie-Inspired Chelambra Bank Heist –  Rs 80 Million.

Hole in the floor Photo by Craig Sunter –

Considered to be the most sensational bank robberies in India to date.

The South Malabar Gramin Bank’s Chelembra branch robbery was inspired by the Bollywood movie Dhoom.

The band of robbers dug a hole in the floor of the bank and stole 80 kilograms of gold and Rs 50 lakh.

This robbery was akin to an Action-comedy movie. The daring group of 4 people rented out a restaurant on the ground floor of a building.

Right on top of the restaurant, there was the South Malabar Gramin Bank in Malappuram. The four people shut the restaurant down and started working on the renovation.

To cover their tracks they bought some furniture and construction materials.

The robbers then proceeded to dig a hole on the roof, which would open up, in the vault of the bank.

The estimated robbery was worth Rs 80 million. The police were finally able to track the accused and recovered 80% of the stolen amount.

4. Ludhania Bank Heist – Rs 5.7 Crores.

Photo by Dayton PD –

Labh Singh was the mastermind behind them as the then-biggest bank robber. 

Sukhdev Singh aka Labh Singh aka Sukha Sipahi aka General Labh Singh was a former Punjab police officer turned militant,

He was the chief of the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF). Singh and his men stole Rs 5.7 crores from Punjab National Bank, Millar Ganj branch Ludhiana.

The 12 members of the KCF entered a PNB branch in Ludhiana, dressed as policemen, and robbed the place clean, taking away about Rs 6 Crores.

This was Back in 1987 Rs 6 Crores if adjusted for inflation would stand at over Rs 65 crores today.

This money was never recovered and most of it is believed to have bought weapons and ammunition for the KCF.

 It’s alleged that most of those who took part in the heist were killed over the next few years in various encounters with authorities.

In 2017, the Supreme Court acquitted nine accused of the case.

5.  Samsung Truck Heist Delhi –  Rs 250 Crores.

Photo by Lian Chang –

Back in 2015, on the 1st of April (Fool’s Day), a group of robbers halted a truck carrying Samsung phones and other electronics, beat the driver and his assistant, and fled with the truck.

The truck’s container had components including integrated circuits, chips and motherboards worth Rs 26.1 crore to be used for phones worth Rs 250 crore.

A factory in the Noida area had imported components from a Samsung facility in South Korea.

The robbers, after stealing the truck, disabled its GPS, because of which it couldn’t be tracked.

Apparently, the truck was carrying goods worth well over Rs 25 crores.

Promod, the alleged mastermind, is a former employee of the transport company. 

He was aware of the delivery schedule of the Samsung components and was well-versed with the route that the containers take to reach the factory.

However, the accused was nabbed before he could access the container and sell off the goods.

Click here to read about famous heists in the world.

6. Tribhovandas Bhimji Zhaveri  (TBZ), Mumbai 1987 – 36 Lakh

 It is said that his preparation was meticulous and his robbery experience sufficient to know to do such a raid.

Like a ninja warrior he left no traces, the reason for his success.

Great heists get a movie made after them; yet, only the greatest heists receive praise from the people charged with prosecuting them. Even law enforcement was in awe of  TBZ.

Robbing one of Mumbai’s most prestigious jewelry stores in the bustling Opera House area unarmed and in broad daylight borders the impossible.

The evil genius behind this robbery is only known by his alias Mohan Singh.

Mohan actually put out a newspaper ad in 1987 seeking ‘intelligence officers and post and security officers’.

The unfortunate successful applicants would unknowingly aid and abet him in this daring robbery.

The team was told they were going on a training mock raid.

At the site aided by fake government insignia and proper observation of CBI procedure, he ordered shutters to be boarded, CCTV cameras shut off and the security guard on duty to hand over his licensed pistol.

The stolen jewelry was bagged and tagged with fake Government seals. After Mohan had taken enough to satisfy himself he told his team to wait at the store while he conducted another raid. He vanished.

Despite police teams combing the country and even extending investigations to Dubai, they came up with naught.

Although 36 lakhs are the smallest stolen amount featured on this list, this crime is extraordinarily sizeable in execution.

7. Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava AKA Natwarlal (India Robbers Hall of Famer)

Natwarlal committed some of India’s most notorious robberies. He is at times ranked as India’s best con man.

He ‘sold’ the Taj Mahal three times as well as India’s parliament building with hundreds of members sitting in the building at the point of sale.

Natwarlal was first a lawyer whose ability to forge signatures was his fast track into the world of crime.

This ability in a time before cyber security along with the gift of gab and an unparalleled power to convince made him capable of selling Indian monuments and tricking India’s billionaires like Dhirubhai Ambani, the Birlas, and the Tatas, resulting in crores of loot.

He was wanted by police in eight states, had over 100 police charges against him, and was arrested nine times.

He was not only a master criminal but a master escape artist, eluding his captors every time. His last escape was at the age of eighty-four at the New Delhi Railway Station while being escorted to the hospital in Delhi.

Although the record of his death is highly disputed, no one can deny this man was the definition of a smooth criminal.

8. Cash In Transit  Van Heist – 22.5 Crore

CIT van by Discott –

Usually referred to as Delhi’s biggest heist, the driver of an Axis Bank cash van deployed to refill ATMs made off with INR 22.5 Crore worth of cash on 24 November 2015.

 The van was transporting money from the Vikaspuri branch and the driver took off with the cash boxes when the accompanying guard stepped out for a washroom break.

The driver had used some money to buy clothes and a watch so most of the money was recovered.

The police arrested the driver Pradeep Shukla who fled with Rs.22.5 crore in cash.  only  Rs.11,000 was found.

He was nabbed sleeping in a warehouse near the Govindpuri Metro station.

9. Ghaziabad Bank Heist

Safe-deposit Boxes by

The robbers drilled a two-foot-wide hole through a nine-inch wall of  Punjab National Bank Modinagar branch in Ghaziabad and stole valuables reportedly worth crores of rupees from its lockers sometime during the last weekend.

The culprits also took a double-barrel gun with them.

They robbed the bank over the weekend break.

The incident came to light after the bank reopened on Monday when one of the bank officials saw light streaming from the hole in the locker room.

Reports suggest that the robbers hacked the hole six feet above the steel lockers.

Burglars got into 30 lockers out of the total of 435 ones available at the bank. Four lockers broken by them were not being used presently, however, they did try to break the locks on a few more

However, the iron chest that housed the cash reserves of the bank was left untouched.

10. Telgi Scam- Rs 20K crore

Abdul Karim Telgi was a convicted Indian counterfeiter.

 He earned money by printing counterfeit government of India stamp papers.

The con artist, who shook the entire nation with his mastered art of forgery in printing duplicate stamp papers. The scam covered  12 states and was estimated to be the amount of 20,000 crores plus.

Corrupt politicians and bureaucrats abated his scams.       

Telgi was jailed at MRA Marg police station in South Mumbai for forgery in 1999.

While in custody, Telgi met Ram Ratan Soni, a government stamp vendor operating from Kolkata. It was here that the idea of committing bigger scams was born.

His business grew to other cities and he lured people to join him in selling fake stamps and stamp papers.

 Telgi allegedly owned 36 properties and more than 100 bank accounts in 18 major cities.

11. Bank of Baroda- Rs 3.43 crore

In 2017, a criminal group rented a space next to the bank branch under the cover of running a small grocery store. The aim was to dig a tunnel that would lead to the bank vaults.

According to the Police, it took the group 4 months to finish the digging works. The underground path was 25ft long. In total, 225 safe deposit boxes were robbed and the total value of cash and jewelry stolen was Rs 3.43 crore.

Read more about unbelievable heists here.

12. Banks in Odisha Capital Bhubaneswar

In 2020, businessman Soumya Ranjan Jena was involved in two connected robberies of the Indian Overseas Bank and Bank of India Branches. 

The sum amounted to nearly Rs 12 lakh. The plan was crafted after he suffered heavy losses in his business due to the lockdown and had taken loans. His loans came to around Rs 35,000.

It has been noted that Soumya got the robbing idea from YouTube videos and was armored only with a toy gun during the first bank heist.

13. State Bank of India Heist

, , via Wikimedia Commons

In 2018, a total of Rs 1.35 crore was stolen from the strong room of the bank. The heist took place on a Saturday, which also happen to be a holiday weekend, the bank employees reported the crime on Tuesday.   

It has been noted that the robbers made their way into the bank’s core facility by breaking in from a small ventilator which made it impossible for the alarms to go off.

The CCTV footage showed that the robbers stayed inside the bank for at least 1 hour and 10 minutes.

14. The Temple Heist

On Saturday, May 6, 2023, a crown on top of the god’s idol in a temple in Delhi was stolen. The thieves also took 10kg of ghee, money, and other valuables used for offering prayers.

The crime occurred at a temple which is situated at the roadside and was captured on CCTV.

15. 12th Century Idol was Stolen 50 years ago

In 2022, a statue was stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu. The idol was found at an international auction. The Pravati idol was reported missing from the Nadanapureshwarar Sivan temple in 1971. The idol is valued at $212,575 and was among five idols that also went missing.

Crime destroys the very fabric of a civilized society. It stalls the growth of a country and creates fear among its citizens.

Robbers are upgrading their planning and execution of heists. therefore the police need to also modern tools in order to intercept and trace criminals.

Read more about famous heists here.