The RHB Bank, a Malaysian bank, in Phonm Penh, Cambodia was robbed at gun-point on Thursday last week. The National Police yesterday reported on its website that the robbers made off with $100,000.
A CCTV footage referring published by the Khmer Times obtained from social media networks is said to show the robbers in action.
Five masked men armed with guns and body armour brazenly robbed the RHB Indochina bank branch in broad daylight, said The Khmer Times.
A source told TISG this is one rare bank robbery in Phonm Penh. He said the robbery shocked the capital due to the style it was carried out.
“This is a shocking robbery. We have not seen such an act for years,” he said.
An interior Ministry spokesman General Khieu Sopheak said that one person has been brought in for questioning thus far.
“This is the first time an armed bank robbery has occurred in a long time,” Gen Sopheak said.
Phnom Penh police yesterday said that the robbery occurred at about 11.40am at RHB Indochina’s Mao Tse Toung Boulevard branch in Chamkar Mon district.
Video footage obtained from the social media and circulating online shows five masked men wearing motorbike helmets pointing guns at a bank security guard and stashing cash into a bag while behind a teller’s counter.
It appeared the suspects knew the bank’s layout while police are considering whether or not it was an inside job.
Witnesses reportedly said the suspects were wearing civilian clothes and pointed guns at a security guard inside the bank.
Though the attack is not attributed to a lack of security guards, last month the National Bank of Cambodia declared bank was no longer in need of armed guards because the country had “fully achieved peace”.