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Perpetrator detained after triggering HOSTAGE situation at bank in central Moscow (VIDEO) Fake ‘bomber’ detained after triggering HOSTAGE situation at bank in central Moscow (VIDEO)
(32 minutes later)
A standoff with a hostage-taker has unfolded in central Moscow, empty due to the Covid-19 quarantine, after an assailant holed up at a downtown bank. Reports said he was threatening to blow the building up. A standoff with a hostage-taker unfolded in central Moscow on Saturday afternoon, after an assailant holed up at a downtown bank branch. Reports said he was threatening to blow up the building.
Moscow police initially responded to an emergency call from one of the bank’s employees, who said the assailant had burst into the building and threatened to blow it up. At least five clerks are assumed to have been inside at the time. Police initially responded to an emergency call from one of Alfa Bank’s employees, who said the man had burst into the building and threatened to detonate a bomb. At least five people, among them employees and customers, were believed to have been inside at the time.
Reports then said that only one person remained in the building as authorities tried to negotiate the situation. The building, located on a busy street in central Moscow, was quickly sealed off by police, with officers establishing contact with the suspect.
The hostage-taker had apparently worn the uniform of a local food delivery chain. That was not confirmed, however.
The Alfa Bank office, located on a busy avenue in central Moscow, was quickly sealed off by arriving police patrols, with officers establishing contact with the suspect. As the story developed, only one person remained on the premises as authorities tried to negotiate the situation. Meanwhile, the suspect, a law enforcement source told the agency, demanded “a large sum of money” from the bank as he was allegedly in severe financial trouble.
He was detained later in the day, without anyone getting hurt. Later reports suggested the hostage-taker had worked as a courier for a local food delivery chain, but the company in question failed to confirm he was their employee.
The standoff ended when police finally made entry into the bank and apprehended the assailant. No one was hurt in the action, footage of which surfaced online.
“Everything ended successfully,” Alexey Giyazov, Alfa Bank’s director for marketing and communications, commented to RIA Novosti following the incident.
A bank official said the perpetrator was “only conditionally a hostage-taker” as it was presumed he had mental-health issues.
Shortly after he was detained, a bomb disposal team checked the bank for explosives using sniffer dogs, but couldn’t find any, law enforcement sources told TASS.
The device the culprit used to intimidate the hostages turned out to be a fake bomb, it emerged.
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