It's solo job
It was a daring heist and he went for it all by himself.
Habib alias Sohel applied all his construction skills to pull off the robbery at the Sonali Bank branch in Kishoreganj on Friday.
The 37-year-old man, who worked as a construction worker in Dubai for three years from 2008, spent a year and a half to dig the tunnel to the bank's vault.
Habib from Patuakhali got the idea of the heist from his wife's maternal uncle Siraj and befriended an employee of the bank to get details.
"Siraj has an account with the bank. He gave me the idea at the beginning of 2012, as he failed to return the money he owed me," said Habib, who was arrested along with his ex-colleague Idris alias Motahar in the capital's Shyampur yesterday afternoon, two days after the robbery was unearthed.
Rab arrested the two with Tk 16.19 crore around 3:00pm at a flat that Habib rented on Saturday. The elite force was yet to recover the rest of the looted Tk 16.40 crore.
Habib, who worked at a cable-manufacturing company for around 15 years since 1993, was paraded before reporters at a press briefing at the Rab headquarters in the evening.
On his return from Dubai in 2011, Habib lent Tk 5 lakh to Siraj, who failed to pay him back, Habib told the reporters.
"Siraj first made the plan two years back, and accordingly, we rented the house beside the bank in early 2012," he said, adding that Siraj frequently visited the bank branch.
Siraj used to pay the rent of the tin-roofed house with two rooms, and also advised him to use a false name -- Sohel.
Habib struck up a friendship with Abu Bakar, a member of lower subordinate staff (MLSS) at the bank, and got details about the bank's vault and interior from him.
Siraj bought digging tools, including shovel, chisel bar and hammer, and supplied those to Habib.
Posing as a carpenter, he used to dig once or twice a week at daytime so that the hubbub of crowd drowned the noise.
After a day's digging, he piled up the earth inside the house, and would spend the night in another rented house at Nagua in the town, where he was living with his wife Sadia Akter.
Whenever the house-owner asked him why he didn't bring his family members there, he used to give various excuses.
About the earth piled inside the house, Habib used to tell people that he was repairing the house.
He hid the tunnel's mouth with wooden platform and didn't dig in rainy days.
Initially, Habib finished digging a tunnel into the bank a week after the Eid-ul-Azha on October 16 but found that the tunnel led to a corridor of the bank, not the vault.
Habib then conveyed it to Siraj, who advised him to carry on the digging. Acting on his advice, Habib continued digging and finally made it to the vault.
Habib first entered the vault around 8:30pm on Friday, and found the money on a table. He then returned to the house. Around 10:15pm, he went to the vault again with sacks to carry the money.
"I came out, said my prayers and had dinner at a nearby restaurant. Then I entered the vault again with 10 empty rice sacks. I put the 1,000-taka notes in six sacks and 500-taka notes in four other sacks. I carried two sacks at a time through the tunnel."
Habib crawled to the vault five times and finished carrying all the sacks to the house around 2:15am on Saturday.
Abdul Malek, officer-in-charge of Kishoreganj Sadar Police Station, said the eight-foot long tunnel is not even wide enough for an adult person to sit inside.
It was dug beneath a five-foot wide alley that separates Habib's house from the bank, said Malek, also investigation officer of the robbery case filed with the police station on Sunday night.
Following the heist, Habib put the 1,000-taka notes in three large jute bags and the 500-taka notes in two more jute bags. He kept around Tk 15 lakh in another bag.
He then bought 230 sacks of rice from two shops for Tk 5 lakh.
On Saturday morning, Habib hired a truck for Tk 12,000 in Piaz Mohol area, saying he would carry rice to Dhaka.
He mixed the sacks full of money with the rice sacks and started for the capital around 11:00am. He reached Shyampur in the evening and sent most of the rice sacks to the shrine of Atrashi Pir by a covered van.
Habib took a few rice sacks and the ones with the money to the rented flat at Balurmath of Shyampur. "I rented the flat on the very evening for around Tk 8,500," he said.
Habib said he and Siraj had plans to buy property with the looted money.
Two bank officials discovered the heist at the Sonali Bank branch on Isa Khan Road on Sunday afternoon after they entered the second cell of the bank's vault to take money for transactions.
Speaking at yesterday's press briefing at the Rab headquarters, Mostafizur Rahman, deputy managing director of Sonali Bank, said more than Tk 200 crore was in the bank's Kishoreganj branch till Thursday, as other branches in the district had earlier deposited money with it.
Asked why the money was kept on the table, not inside the safe, Mostafizur said, "These things will come to light during investigation."
A total of 16 people, including the bank manager, were quizzed on Monday. Police also detained the house owner for interrogation.
Rab Director General Mokhlesur Rahman told reporters yesterday that bank officials might have been involved in the heist.
“Others who were involved in the robbery will be arrested soon," he said.
Comments