Police yesterday said they had caught the suspect in a bankrobbery in Taipei on Wednesday and had recovered most of the loot less than 24 hours after the robbery took place,.
The suspect, Lin Hsiu-ping (林修平), 48, was apprehended at about 10am yesterday and taken in for questioning, police said.
Lin reportedly made off with NT$300,000 (US$9,974), after holding a fruit knife to a female customer’s throat at Taipei Star Bank’s (瑞興商業銀行) Shilin Branch early on Wednesday afternoon.
Photo: Chen En-hui, Taipei Times
“We have recovered NT$270,000 of that money, part of which the suspect deposited it into a post office account. The suspect said he already spent the rest of the money to purchase goods,” Shilin Police Precinct criminal investigation unit head Lai Chun-yao (賴俊堯) said.
Lin used the other NT$30,000 amount to buy an iPhone, a waist pack and other items, he was quoted by police as saying.
“The suspect said that he was unemployed and had borrowed some money, which the lenders demanded be paid back, so he was forced by the situation to rob a bank,” Lai said.
After the robbery, police officials formed a special task force, with investigators working around the clock to examine video footage from more than 100 surveillance cameras around Shilin District to track down the vehicles and routes the suspect used to escape
“We were able to track the route the suspect took as he fled on a motorcycle. Then he got off on a nearby street, took off his motorcycle helmet and hailed a cab, which took him to a post office,” Lai said. “After depositing some money into an account, he again hailed a cab to go elsewhere.”
Police investigators tracked down the cab drivers and obtained a description of the suspect from them, Lai said.
“This way, we were able to make a positive identification and put him on the police watchlist to cover his possible whereabouts. Then at about 10am, we caught the suspect when he surfaced in the streets of Shilin.”
Lin is a repeat offender, police officials said, adding that he pulled off a bank robbery 11 years ago.
“We found that Lin had in 2006 robbed a bank in Beitou District (北投), also by putting a knife against a female customer’s throat. At that time he also donned a motorcycle helmet and a medical mask to conceal his face. He also got about NT$300,000 in that bank robbery,” Lai said.
Lin at the time surrendered to the police and the court handed him a prison sentence of three years and eight months, but he was released early on parole for good behavior.
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