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NEW DELHI: Having scanned 50 hideouts in the city and sent a team to Balia in Uttar Pradesh, police found the mastermind of Delhi’s biggest van heist gorging on tandoori chicken and gulping down vodka, as he sat on his Rs 22.5 crore loot in an abandoned Okhla factory , barely half-hour from where he had fled with the cash van.Cracking the case within eight hours, police said driver Pradeep Shukla had acted alone. The entire cash has been recovered, except for Rs 10,500 he spent on logistics, food and liquor.Cash van driver left a long trail of cluesShukla told interrogators he was fed with the “underpaid” job that required him to spend long hours behind the wheel. He had been planning the heist for some time and executed it at the first opportunity — when the van’s gunman took a toilet break.The police team found Shukla around 1.45am at the factory, where he had driven in, unloaded the cash boxes and driven out to leave the van at the Govindpuri Metro station.Special police commissioner (law and order) Deepak Mishra has announced a reward of Rs 2 lakh for the search team.The Rs 22.5 crore heist was Shukla’s first crime and he left clues that helped cops get to him within hours. Police analysed GPS logs of the van, Shukla’s call records and electronic locations and human intelligence network to solve the case.On Thursday, four vans of the cash replenishment firm, SIS, left from Axix Bank’s chest in Vikaspuri around 2.30pm with Rs 38 crore cash. “Shukla and gunman Vinay Patel were in one of the vans (DL 1LK 9189). As they reached Okhla Subzi Mandi near Modi Mill area around 3.41pm, the Patel asked him to pull over to a side and went on a toilet break,” DCP (southeast) Mandeep Randhawa said.“The guard had left his gun in the van and Shukla had the keys to the vault. This was the opportunity he was waiting for and he decided to strike,” Randhawa added.As per Shukla’s confession, he told Patel that he would return on the other side of the road, and drove straight to the abandoned factory in Okhla phase III. He had already befriended the factory’s 70-year-old guard as his wife worked there. As the cash boxes were heavy — each weighing 70kg — Shukla placed sand bags to make a slope and dragged down the nine boxes one by one. He told the factory guard, Ram Surat, that he had a consignment which had to be sent to Varanasi.He then called in two workers from a nearby factory to help him stash the boxes inside the factory. He paid them Rs 200 each, throwing in as extra Rs 200 as tip. Meanwhile, the gunman called to ask where he had disappeared. He told Patel he was stuck in traffic.Shukla finished unloading the boxes in around 15 minutes and left the van at the Govindpuri Metro station. He returned to the factory in an auto, buying a bottle of Magic Moments vodka with him. At 5.48pm, the cops were informed about the heist from the company and rushed to the spot.'No violation by transport firm'After downing a few pegs, Shukla went to his home in Harkesh Nagar to meet wife Shashikala. She hadn’t returned by then, so he quickly left the place. By this time, the cops had mounted massive surveillance in the area on strong suspicion that Shukla was somewhere nearby.Around 1.45am, a cop saw faint light in one of the factories and decided to raid it. That’s where they found their man. His version was corroborated and the role of any accomplice ruled out.“The pressure to crack the case was immense because of the huge money involved. My teams took it as a challenge and carried an all-night operation to solve the case,” special commissioner Mishra told TOI. Police chief B S Bassi too praised the team for its work.