Rijo Antony, who was arrested in the Chalakkudy bank heist case, had done whatever he could to mislead the police. He brandished a knife at the bank staff and spoke to them in Hindi. He used his own scooter for the theft but affixed a fake number plate. He burnt the jacket and gloves he had worn for theft on the way back to his house.

He threw away the number plate into an abandoned quarry nearby. He came to the bank wearing two shirts underneath the jacket. On his way back, he changed into shirts so that he couldn't leave any trail or visual on footage; that's what he thought. When police eventually arrived at his house on Sunday, Rijo couldn't help but ask the cops how they found him so easily.

The police started off with the scooter, Ntorq, and learnt that less than 500 scooters were sold in that area. Surveillance footage from the church opposite the bank gave an idea about how many people in the vicinity used that model, said Thrissur Range DIG Hari Sankar.

A few numbers were shortlisted and then the surveillance was focused on the movement of that particular model scooter on the day of the crime. The idea paid off. One scooter was found leaving a house at 1.30 pm and returning by 3 pm. Timeline matched with the occurrence of the crime; to get confirmation police attempted a trail of vehicles that were headed to Angamaly and the scooter hadn't figured in any of the footage.

The police knew that the theft was committed by someone who was familiar with the bank, the surroundings and was fully aware of the weak security arrangements in the bank. He chose the lunch hour to strike, knowing that there wouldn't be much of a crowd inside. In the robbery,  Rijo has taken three bundles of cash from the bank.

Four teams of police were constituted for the probe; one team was devoted to scouring the vehicle records, another was assigned for field work, while the two other teams focused on call data records and documents.