Bank hostage situation ends after mother's plea

An armed man surrendered to police shortly after storming a Hsinchu bank and taking a dozen staff members and customers hostage yesterday.

Police said Tseng Yung-hua (曾詠華) stormed into the headquarters of Hsinchu International Bank (HIB) at 10:15am, armed with two pistols and a grenade, and took 12 people hostage.

Tseng, 32, said he wanted protest the bank's pressure on him to repay his debts.

Police arrived on the scene within minutes and began negotiations with Tseng.

After initial discussions, Tseng handed over one of his guns and released three hostages. The gun turned out later to be fake.

Police then asked Tseng's mother to help persuade him to disarm. After more than an hour of negotiations, Tseng finally surrendered his second gun -- a real one -- and was taken into custody. There were no casualties in the incident.

HIB president Wu Chih-wei (吳志偉) said Tseng holds a bank credit card and at one time owed NT$240,000.

The bank then sought the assistance of a private company specializing in handling bad debts to push Tseng to honor his payment.

"We regret that Tseng took such radical action," Wu said.