London: A 27-year-old Indian is among four men who have been charged for a daring and audacious plot to take control of a Spanish bank's computer systems in the UK and steal millions of pounds. The Metropolitan Police had arrested 12 men aged between 23 and 50 in London on Friday but later charged only four among them. Akash Vaghela was among the four who have been charged.

Akash Vaghela, Asad AliQureshi (35) Lanre Mullins-Abudu (25) and Dean Outram (34) on Saturday appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court charged with conspiracy to steal. The three men have been remanded in custody by District Judge Howard Riddle and will next appear at Southwark Crown Court on September 27. Vaghela was released on bail until the same date.

Eight other people have been bailed to a date in mid-November pending further inquiries. The cyber gang is alleged to have tried to use a "keyboard video mouse" to take control of all the branch's computers. It is alleged one of the plotters posed as an engineer in an attempt to fit a computer in the bank in south-east London with a "keyboard video mouse" device that allowed them to transmit its desktop contents.

Detectives say the hardware could have "allowed the suspects to take control of the bank's computer remotely" and potentially allowed them to siphon millions. Detective Insp Mark Raymond said: "This was a sophisticated plot that could have led to the loss of a very large amount of money from the bank, and is the most significant case of this kind that we have come across.

A spokesman for the bank said: "The attempt to fit the device to the computer in the Surrey Quays Branch was undertaken by a bogus maintenance engineer pretending to be from a third party. "It failed and no money was ever at risk. No member of Santander staff was involved in this attempted fraud." A bank spokesman added that Santander was aware it was a target and it had been working with the police for three or four months before the bogus engineer attempted to connect the device.