Ahmedabad: Five more persons have been nabbed in Mumbai in connection with the Rs five crore heist of gold and silver articles from a delivery truck on June 3 near here, police said today.

Articles worth Rs 1.5 crore were also recovered from the accused who were brought here today by the officials of the local crime branch of Ahmedabad Rural Police, a release said.

The accused were identified as Ajay Mohite (30), Dattatrey Sonawane (45), Pramod Patil (34), Vijaysingh Thakur (42) and Sunil Barot (37), it said.

Earlier, nine persons, including a State Reserve Police (SRP) constable, were arrested from various parts of the state for their alleged role in the crime and articles worth Rs 3.5 crore were recovered from them.

The five accused were nabbed on the basis of the information provided by the arrested persons who are in police custody.

According to police, Thakur is a member of the Mumbai-based Pawar gang, which was hired by the Bharwad gang of Gujarat to carry out the heist on the night of June 3 near Bavla village on Ahmedabad-Rajkot Highway.

After looting the valuables, members of both the gangs divided it among themselves.

Later, members of Pawar gang fled to Mumbai, the release said.

As per the FIR, the prime accused and leader of Bharwad gang, Sura Bharwad hatched the plan to loot the valuables from the delivery truck of an Angadia firm.

Accordingly, he roped in his relative and the SRP constable, Ghela Bharwad who in turn contacted the leader of Pawar gang, Sunil Pawar (48) and his associates to execute the crime jointly.

Police said Sunil Pawar was once part of a gang run by the underworld gangster Chhota Rajan's hechman O P Singh who was murdered in Nashik Jail in 1999.

Ghela, Sura, Pawar along with six others were arrested earlier by the LCB.

Out of 15 men involved in the heist, eight belonged to the Pawar gang and seven to Bharwad gang.

As per their plan, Ghela, dressed in his uniform and standing near his car on the highway, flagged down the truck at around 11 PM under the pretext of checking the papers.

As soon as the driver and gunman pulled in and reached near Ghela's car, the other accused overpowered the duo.

They drove away the truck to a nearby location and fled with 27 parcels containing gold and silver articles.