Chelembra bank robbery

The bank was in the first floor of a building. The ground floor had a restaurant that was up for rent. The four-member gang rented the restaurant by giving an advance payment of about Rs. 50,000. They shut down the front door and placed a board saying that it was under renovation and would reopen on 8 January 2008. To make things more convincing, they even bought new furniture for the restaurant and much construction material for the site. They also covered up the windows with newspapers to avoid being suspicious.

Those who were watching the scene would have thought that repairs were going on. But they were cracking the first floor open, where the strong room was kept. They made a hole in the ceiling to the strong room where they took the money from iron safes that they cut open using a gas cutting machine. They took away gold and cash kept inside the safe.[3][4]

The Kerala Police quickly formed a number of special teams. A special team led by Malappuram Superintendent of Police P. Vijayan and Deputy Superintendent K K Ibrahim conducted the investigation under the supervision of K.S.Jangpangi the Additional Director General of Kerala Police. The team consisted of Circle Inspectors of Police Vikraman and M.P Mohanachandran, SI Anvar Hussain and other officers from the subordinate ranks . It was a challenging task for Kerala Police to begin investigation as there was no evidence and no leads available for them to proceed with. Like many other bank robberies, it was done at the wee hours of a Sunday, since it is a holiday and it had come to light only on the next day.

However, police made a computer graphic sketch image of the main culprit as illustrated by eyewitnesses and neighbors. The criminals tried to create an impression of Naxalite involvement in the robbery by quoting a sentence Jai Mao (praising naxalism) at the scene of the crime to deviate enquiry. There were many attempts by the culprits to divert the whole attention of the investigation team to Hyderabad. According to police officials, the criminals had purposely left one kilogram of looted gold in a hotel room in Hyderabad and made telephone calls from many different cities of India to mislead the investigation.

The police team also monitored all telephone calls in the closest mobile signal towers at the location of the crime during the midnight hours of the incident. It was a big task monitoring more than two million calls. The help of various mobile service providers and IT professionals was also enlisted for the probe.

And finally, it was the identification of a secret phone number used by the main suspects to communicate between themselves, that became the turning point in the investigation.

The leader confessed that the crime was inspired by the Bollywood movie Dhoom. In the movie also, the robbers made a hole in the ground floor of the bank and got away with the valuables during the new-year event. But the plan did not go as planned as the dynamites used to blow off the ceiling did not deal any damage.[7]

The robbery has been written in detail by true crime bestselling author Anirban Bhattacharyya in the book India's Money Heist: The Chelembra Bank Robbery which he co-wrote with IG of Kerala P. Vijayan and it was published by Penguin Random House in 2022. The book was launched by superstar Mohanlal at Lulu International Shopping Mall at Kochi.[8]

The book rights have been sold for a screen adaptation and according to many news reports, superstar Mohanlal will essay the role of the cop P. Vijayan, while Fahadh Faasil will play the antagonist and super criminal Babu.[9]