Bank Robber Nabbed after 3-day Manhunt
A 27 year-old man was arrested in Kaohsiung City today, after an armed robbery of a bank in the city on October 1.
At around 3:25pm, Monday afternoon, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet, a surgical mask, and sunglasses, entered a branch of Chang Hwa Bank on Jianguo 2nd Road in Kaohsiung City, pointed a gun at staff, and demanded money.
According to a CNA report of the robbery, a witness said that the man appeared “gentle,” and had whispered to a female teller, “This is a robbery.”
The teller responded incredulously, “What are you doing?”
“A robbery,” the bank robber replied.
“Is this real, or fake?” the teller asked.
When the alarm started ringing, the robber became agitated and started waving the gun at people, shouting, “This is a robbery!” The man then sprayed a bank guard and a female teller with pepper spray before jumping an unmanned counter and grabbing bundles of NT$1,000 notes to a total of NT$500,000. The robber then ran out of the bank and escaped on a scooter, dropping a toy pistol at the scene.
A police investigation found that the license plates on the scooter had been stolen.
According to Apple Daily News, at around 3:30pm this afternoon, police arrested a man named Mai (麥) in the parking lot of the Dream Mall in Qianzhen District, Kaohsiung City. Mai had just purchased clothes in the mall, and had been identified by members of the public after police distributed images of the suspect the day after the robbery. Police said that public tip-offs had been key to solving the case.
Police recovered NT$380,000 of the stolen money. The rest of the money had been used to repay gambling debts, according to the suspect’s testimony. The accumulation of NT$300,000 in gambling debts, owed to underground lenders, and family and friends was the motivation for the robbery, according to Mai’s confession.
Last month, Mai had stolen a motorcycle, and license plates, in Sanmin and Zuoying Districts of Kaohsiung City, then purchased pepper spray and a toy gun. On October 1, Mai went to a bank in Sanmin District with the intent to carry out a robbery. However, there were too many customers in the bank, so Mai changed his target to the Jianxing Branch of the Chang Hwa Bank.
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