Robber holds CTBC bank teller hostage with a grenade! Getting caught in Taiwan might have been his motive for robbing the bank

This afternoon (April 24), a gunman broke into the CTBC Bank Da'an Branch on Section 4, Zhongxiao East Road, Da'an District, Taipei, and held a bank employee hostage. Police quickly surrounded the scene and eventually subdued the suspect. Not only was a suspected fake gun recovered from him, but also a hand grenade. Let's make some simple speculations about the motive. (Previous coverage: French criminals disguised as fake police officers, used knives to force a couple in their 50s in Paris to transfer 1 million USD in BTC) (Background: Cambodian Senator Kok An sanctioned by the US! Involved in 28 pig-butchering scam entities; Tether froze 344 million USDT on the same day) Section 4 of Zhongxiao East Road is one of the least suitable places in Taipei to rob a bank. It is located in one of the most densely populated areas in Taiwan, where the afternoon flow of people, buses, and scooters makes it extremely difficult to escape. There are police forces stationed at two nearby MRT stations, and a police station within the street. Furthermore, the entrance of the CTBC Bank Da'an Branch itself has security guards. But this afternoon, a robber pushed the door and walked in. The police received the report, rushed to surround the area, and there was a standoff between the police and the robber. Eventually, the suspect was subdued. Not only was a suspected fake handgun recovered from him, but also a hand grenade. This is no longer the era of Li Shi-ke (do young people know who he is?) and it has long ceased to be the era of the "Raincoat Bandit." Mentioning these two people seems to reveal my age. The first armed bank robbery in Taiwan's history occurred in 1982, when a masked Li Shi-ke walked into the Guting Branch of the Land Bank of Taiwan and stole over 5.3 million TWD. From that day on, Taiwan's financial institutions mandated that the public could not wear helmets or masks inside, and security guards and emergency buttons were added to bank entrances. From 2002 to 2012, Wang Yuan, nicknamed the "Raincoat Bandit," committed 7 robberies of cash-in-transit vehicles and banks, stealing a total of over 40 million TWD and causing 1 death and 8 injuries. The final case was in March 2012, when he stole 12.5 million TWD from the Nanjing East Road Branch of the Taipei Business Bank. He was intercepted while leaving the country at the end of that year, and in 2013, the Supreme Court sentenced him to life imprisonment. After Wang Yuan, there were no real bank robbers. The only armed bank robbery in Taipei worth mentioning is likely the one at the Ban-Shin Commercial Bank in March 2020. At that time, the suspect entered with a gun, succeeded, and was eventually caught in Longtan, Taoyuan. In March 2021, someone broke into the Ban-Shin Commercial Bank in Xiaogang, Kaohsiung with a gun and was subdued by the police on the spot. What remains are only rare, unsuccessful "amateur robbers," including impulsive offenders who enter banks with fake guns, kitchen knives, or hammers, most of whom are subdued by security guards at the bank entrance. Bank robbery is listed as a "romantic crime," but the reason is not very romantic, because the success rate is almost zero. Every branch is equipped with not only 8 to 12 CCTVs but also facial recognition that can be uploaded in real-time. Most of the cash behind the counter is kept in time-locked safes that even the employees cannot open. Today, over 90% of bank payments use electronic systems, and the amount of cash available at the counter is no longer at the level of the 1990s; some small branches may only have a daily cash reserve of about 10 million TWD. When the emergency alarm inside the bank is pressed, police often arrive at the scene within 5 minutes. The escape route after leaving the bank is captured by street cameras one after another, and the scooter license plate, clothing color, shoe style, and walking style can be "pieced together" within a day. Wang Yuan hid for 10 years by relying on raincoats, route design, rotating hideouts, and a style of deliberately not repeating patterns across cases. But under today's technical precautions, that is simply a joke. In 2026, was it intentional for the robber to walk into CTBC Da'an? The hand grenade pushed the entire "bank robbery" to another level. Robbing a bank with a gun carries a sentence of more than 7 years to life