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SINGAPORE – When one of the robbers jumped on her and pulled out a knife, Ms. S. Yang’s first thought was of her three young children.
The 35-year-old manager of a licensed lender, who declined to give her full name, was alone at OT Credit on Thursday afternoon (Nov. 19) when three men entered the store at Block 135 Jurong Gateway Road.
They wore face masks and made no further attempts to hide their faces or wear gloves. The men fled the scene with about $ 48,000, Ms. Yang said.
On Friday morning, the police informed him that the three men had been arrested.
“Of course, as a mother, the first thing I thought about when I saw the knife was my children and what would happen to them if something happened to me,” Ms. Yang told The Straits Times on Friday afternoon. Their children are between two and six years old.
In a press conference on Friday, police confirmed that four men between the ages of 19 and 26 were arrested for their alleged involvement in an armed robbery at a unit on Jurong Gateway Road.
Preliminary investigations determined that of the quartet, three of them had allegedly carried out the robbery.
One of them is said to have pointed a knife at an employee, pulled her hair and demanded that she hand over the money to the unit.
The men then allegedly dragged her into a room inside the store to confine her before fleeing with around $ 48,000 in cash.
The fourth man who was arrested is suspected of helping dispose of the knife used in the robbery.
Within 12 hours, agents from the Clementi Police Intelligence Department and Police Division identified the three men who carried out the act, police said in a press release, adding that the men tried to conceal their identities to evade detection and arrest.
About $ 30,000 of the cash has been recovered, and efforts are underway to recover the rest.
The four men will be charged in court Saturday with armed robbery with injuries.
If convicted, they face between five and 20 years in prison and at least 12 strokes of the baton.
Ms. Yang, who has worked at OT Credit for five years, said that two of the men had visited the store before the robbery early Thursday.
One kept his motorcycle helmet on while talking to her, but she later recognized him from his eyes and from the soccer jersey he was wearing. The other man opened the store door and poked his head out, but did not speak to the staff.
When the duo returned to the store around 4 p.m. with another man, they did not appear suspicious to Ms. Yang while asking for a loan.
Suddenly, one of them lunged across the table and grabbed her by the hair while holding a knife, she claimed.
The other two men kept watch at the front and back of the store while the third man is said to have pulled her through the store by the hair in search of the safe while still holding the knife.
Before fleeing the scene, they locked Ms. Yang in the back room.
Staff from the neighboring unit, a money changer, told ST that they heard her hitting the divide between the two stores and yelling for help.
“She seemed very shocked and shocked. She said someone took their money and she ran away. Once we let her out, she called the police,” said Mrs. Lutfunnesa Shahanaz, 50, deputy director of the exchange.
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