Police probe suicide allegedly linked to bank robbery in southern Vietnam
Saturday, September 30, 2017, 13:57 GMT+7
Police in Vinh Long are verifying if a man who apparently killed himself on Friday has anything to do with an armed bank heist in the same southern province earlier this week.
A former military official, known only as N.V.K., was found dead after an apparent suicide at his workplace in the provincial capital of Vinh Long on Friday morning.
K. said in his suicide note that he has “conducted a bank robbery [to pay] huge debts from bank loans and a fuel firm,” according to a police official of the province’s Long Ho District.
A man, wearing a helmet and face cover while wielding an object that appeared to be a gun, charged into a branch of state-run VietinBank in Long Ho on Wednesday and quickly left with his bag filled with more than VND200 million ($8,724).
Tran Van Ron, secretary of the Vinh Long Party Committee, confirmed the suicide of the former military man with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Friday afternoon, but underlined that this and the bank robbery are two separate cases.
“We have directed local police to verify the relation between the suicide and the bank robbery,” Ron told Tuoi Tre.
Ron underlined that the two cases “occurred separately,” adding that people have to bear responsibility on their own if their claim that the man who killed himself is also the bank robber turns out to be wrong.
“I have insisted that the final conclusion be announced only after the cases are verified,” he said.
Pham Van Ngan, deputy director of the Vinh Long police department, also asserted to Tuoi Tre that the suspect in the Vietinbank robbery remains at large, adding however that the case “is making good progress.”
After successfully threatening the bank employees to put money in his bag, the suspect escaped on a white scooter wearing no license plate and apparently heading for the nearby city of Can Tho.
On his run, the suspect left behind his shoes and gloves at one point, and later got rid of his black bag and helmet at another location.
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