The suspect of the bank robbery in Holland Village was wandering around the streets of Bangkok in just 6 hours after the crime.
The suspect, who is a Canadian, was believed to walk towards Chip Bee Garden estate with $30,000 in cash and managed to escape from Singapore and flew to Bangkok and made it through the Immigration and Checkpoint Authorities.
Major-General Apichart Suriboonya, who heads Thailand’s Interpol unit stated that the suspect landed in Thailand at about 5pm Thailand time (6pm Singapore time). The flight between Singapore and Bangkok took about 2,5 hours.
The suspect was in a run for three days but Royal Thai Police finally arrested the man on Sunday 10, at Boxpackers Hostel in the Ratchathewi district of central Bangkok.
Singapore and Thailand do not have extradition treaty but the police said the Singapore authorities are “engaging our counterparts in Thailand to see whether the suspect can be released into our custody”.
The police announced on their Facebook page, and said the suspect was arrested with the assistance of the Royal Thai Police.
The Singapore police did not reveal any details regarding the identity of the suspect, such as his name, his age, his height and the circumstances leading to the arrest are still unknown to the Singapore public.
The robbery happened at 11.25 am and the police said officers from Clementi Division, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the Public Transport Security Command (TransCom) and the Police Intelligence Department (PID) responded to the case immediately after the bank alerted on the robbery.
The police said that they cooperated with its Thai counterparts who helped them to locate and arrest the suspect. The police said, “Police did not release further details beyond the initial police statements for operational reasons to ensure the arrest operation was not jeopardised.”
Standard Chartered Bank stated to Channel NewAsia that it is “glad” the police have arrested the suspect and the spokesperson added, “We will continue to fully cooperate with the police on the investigations.”
Although no harm was made during the robbery, this crime is considered as serious crime and the suspect will be given “severe punishment” to deter others, said Mr Tan. “Although nobody was harmed, robbing a bank is a very serious crime. It is where we keep large sums of money and now it seems there is a loophole,” he said.
If found guilty of robbery, the suspect would face up to 10 years’ jail and at least six strokes of the cane.
