NEW DELHI: Three people were arrested on Monday at Pandav Nagar for the December 19 cash van heist . Police seized Rs 9.5 lakh stolen money and country-made pistols used in the crime. Delhi Police said the mastermind, Bittoo (29), drove the car of a discom official. He would often see lightly guarded cash vans of a particular logistics filling up ATMs. A plot started shaping in his mind. But he couldn’t have possibly pulled off a robbery all by himself; he needed more hands. So Bittoo roped in Rohit Nagar (19) and Sunny Sharma (22).The trio studied their targets well. They would follow different cash vans from source to destination, monitor the activities of the crew, and even see how the vans were parked while the machines were being replenished. They found out the loopholes and prepared to take advantage of them.As part of the first phase of the plan, the trio stole a motorcycle from Civil Lines and changed the numberplate with the help of Bittoo’s contact in Karawal Nagar.On December 19, they followed a cash van through the day and tried to strike three times near Shakarpur, Laxmi Nagar and Nirman Vihar. But because there were too many people around, they decided not to attack.But the road near Patparganj crossing was relatively less crowded and the trio thought it would be easier to strike quick and escape. They opened fire to scare the guard.Nagar then had a minor scuffle with the crew member carrying the cash bag and snatched it away while Sharma held the driver and guard at gunpoint.They made good their escape and raced off to Yamuna Pushta . There, they took out the cash from the bag and stuffed it in their pockets. They left the empty bag beside a drain. The bike, too, was abandoned on Sharma and Nagar’s insistence.To cover their tracks, the three goons changed two autorickshaws to reach home. The day after, they all fled to Haridwar.But even though they fled with the loot, they didn’t spend the cash — they saw TV channels flashing the news of the heist, and they also took the rumours about the new notes having embedded GPS chips a bit too seriously.Meawhile, the police were hot on their heels. “Four teams under additional DCP Sathiya Sundaram were formed to track the men down in Delhi, Haryana and UP. Based on inputs, a trap was laid outside a mall in east Delhi,” said DCP (east) Omvir Singh.Bittoo, Nagar and Sharma came to the mall driving a stolen car, and they were arrested.