LAMPANG -- A lone gunman held up a Bangkok Bank branch inside a Tesco Lotus department store and made off with 190,000 baht on Tuesday afternoon.
Pol Col Suthep Thanapavorakul, deputy chief of Lampang police, said footage of closed circuit security cameras and witness accounts showed that the robber entered the bank as if he were a customer. He obtained a queue ticket from a machine and waited for his turn.
When his number came up he approached a female teller, Punnasa Khuenkhama, and handed her a piece of paper with the message "Give me all the cash. I have a gun’’.
He then pretended to pull something from his shoulder bag, but Ms Punnasa did not follow his instruction immediately, said Pol Col Suthep.
The man then pulled out a pistol and pointed it at her. Terrified, she immediately took the cash from her drawer and handed it to him.
The man snatched money, totaling 190,000 baht, and ran from the bank, causing panic among customers.
Early reports said he threw a ping-pong firecracker that exploded as he raced through the foodcourt to the exit.
He then fled off on a motorcycle from the parking area.
The deputy police chief said copies of a sketch of the robber had been circulated to all police stations, and he would be caught.
Earlier story (new photo below):
A lone man robbed a Bangkok Bank branch inside a Tesco Lotus department store in Lampang and made off with more than 100,000 baht, throwing a lighted ping-pong bomb to scare off pursuit as he fled on Tuesday afternoon.
The tall, lean robber, thought to be aged about 50, was wearing a face mask when he entered the Tesco Lotus branch of Bangkok Bank in Lampang's Muang district around 1.20pm, police said.
The man told the female cashier at counter 2 that he had a gun and threatened to shoot her. He then grabbed at least 100,000 baht from the cashier's drawer before running from the bank.
When he arrived at the food court, he threw a ping-poing bomb which exploded, causing panic among the people there.
The robber ran to the store’s motorcycle parking area and roared off on a motorbike toward Ko Kha district along the Lampang super highway-Ngao-Phayao route, witnesses said.
Police said they were hot on his trail.
Footage from a security camera shows the robber threatening the female cashier with a gun, demanding she hand over the money.