Police are on the lookout for three men who robbed Rs 18 lakh from an ATM in central Hubballi, Karnataka on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, according to a report in the The New Indian Express.

Police said that the thieves used a gas cutter to break open the vault. The incident came to light on Saturday evening when some bank staff came to load cash in the ATM.

The staff found the shutters drawn, but it wasn’t locked. Once they entered, they found that the cash vending machines empty.  

“A team of SBI from Bengaluru will arrive here to help decode the camera recordings. The camera inside the kiosk has not been damaged, but the storage unit has been taken out. The ATM had no security guard despite direction given to the banks to employee guards at all its ATMs,” Police Commissioner MN Nagaraj told TNIE.

The State Bank Of India ATM in Deshpande Nagar was not manned by a security personnel. There are no eyewitnesses to the incident. Police have, however, acquired CCTV footage of the robbery.

“There is a footage of three men entering the kiosk. The incident could have occurred on Friday late night,” an investigating officer also told TNIE.

This incident comes a day after the cybercrime unit of the Karnataka Crime Investigations Department arrested two foreign nationals for allegedly rigging several bank ATMs in Bengaluru.