Banking: illegal immigrants target cash withdrawals at banks
Police in Johor Bahru, the border town for Malaysia, Singapore and - via ports and light boats - Indonesia - have arrested two illegal immigrants from Indonesia who targeted bank customers leaving ATMs.
The system was simple: one of the two watched customers as they made withdrawals, paying particular attention to those taking out larger sums. Then they trailed the customers.
Mostly, they targeted women who put the money in their handbags and then put the bags on the passenger seat of their car, stealing the bags as the women got into their cars in car parks or at traffic lights.
But they were also more brazen: an attack on an elderly man leaving a bank in a shopping district resulted in one of the muggers being shot in the leg. The other was arrested within minutes at a different shopping centre about a mile away.
Police say that there are others in the gang and that they are responsible for at least ten robberies.
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