GHAZIYEH, Lebanon — A Lebanese man carrying a gun and a jerrican of fuel withdrew his frozen savings at gunpoint Friday, the third such incident in the crisis-hit country this week.
اضافة اعلان
When a branch of the Byblos bank opened in the southern town of Ghaziyeh, a depositor, reported to be in his 50s, stormed the premises with his adult son.
He threatened bank employees with a gun, which a Lebanese TV channel said may have been a toy, and demanded his savings.
"He emptied a jerrican of fuel on the floor," a bank security guard told an AFP reporter.
The man walked away with around $19,000 and turned himself into the police moments later as a crowd formed in front of the bank to support him.
It was the latest in a series of heists in Lebanon, where depositors' savings have been devalued and trapped in banks for almost three years amid a crippling economic crisis.
They usually act out of economic desperation by depositors with no criminal record trying to settle bills and have drawn wide sympathy among the public.
On Wednesday, a young woman held up a bank in central Beirut using a similar modus operandi. She said was an attempt to retrieve the savings of her sister, a cancer patient.
Sali Hafiz became an instant hero on social media, and a phone picture of him standing on a desk inside the bank during the heist became viral.
Also on Wednesday, a man held up a bank in the city of Aley northeast of Beirut, the official National News Agency reported.
Last month, a man received widespread sympathy after he stormed a Beirut bank with a rifle and held employees and customers hostage for hours to demand some of his $200,000 in frozen savings to pay hospital bills for his sick father.
He was detained but swiftly released.
Lebanon has been battered by one of its worst-ever economic crises.
Its currency has lost over 90 percent of its value on the black market, while poverty and unemployment have soared.
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