KARACHI, Jan 7: Police have arrested two of the five suspects involved in what is being described as the biggest cash robbery in the city’s history.

However, no cash could be recovered from the suspects hauled up in the early hours of Monday.

Five suspects, including two security guards posted at the office of the money exchange company housed in Saima Trade Towers, took away Rs150 million worth of currency, including dollars and pounds, when the armoured cash vehicle was being parked to shift the cash into the office.

Sources close to the investigators said the actual amount taken by the guards was Rs210 million, but the owners reportedly chose to report less in an attempt to avoid the attention of financial watchdogs.

They said that two accomplices, identified as Bashir and Younus, were picked up at the Kochi Camp in the Shorab Goth area early Monday morning by the SIO of the Preedy police station.

The two suspects with their associates initially posed as guests of the two security guards, Hameedullah and Noorul Khan, when the cash van arrived at the office from the airport on Sunday.

Police found cash receipts on them, but not the money. They told the police that the cash was with Hameedullah and Noorul Khan.

Police carried out subsequent raids at different spots identified by the detained suspects, but failed in their efforts.

Driver of the cash van Mohammad Riaz has also identified the two suspects involved in the armed holdup following their arrest.

City police chief Azhar Ali Farooqi told Dawn that he had sent an urgent formal request to the provincial home department, seeking cancellation of the licence of Silver Eagle, the security agency whose two guards carried out Sunday’s holdup.

He added that in a separate case, he had also sent details of nine armed holdups at banks where security guards were involved, requesting the home department to take punitive action against the security agencies employing them.

In the past few years several similar requests have been made to the home department, but the regulatory body (home department) has failed to discipline the security agencies.

Without elaborating, the city police chief said that some progress was made on Monday.

Mr Farooqi confirmed that the case had been transferred to the Anti-Violent Crime Unit for speedy progress.

However, AVCU chief SP Farooq Awan said he had also learnt about the case being transferred to him, but so far nothing of that sort had happened.