KOTA BELUD: It took just less than 24 hours for the police to solve an armed robbery here on Tuesday.
District police chief DSP Mohan Nadasen said police believe they have solved the case with the arrest of six local men, aged between 25 to 45 years, after they robbed an eatery with machetes at Kampung Kiau, along Jalan Kota Belud-Tamparuli around 11.30am on July 9.
Mohan said initial police investigation revealed that five of the suspects and a female accomplice had earlier robbed the eatery of four handphones, a gold necklace, a digital camera and RM100 cash from the eatery owner and his two employees.
The suspects had then fled from the scene in a Proton Saga car heading towards Kota Belud town.
Following investigation and acting on information received from the public, police recovered the Proton Saga car in the district around 4.30pm on the same day, he said.
Mohan said further inspection on the car revealed that it had been reported stolen in Kota Kinabalu in May this year.
He said once the vehicle was recovered, a manhunt was immediately launched by the police and they apprehended six men in Kota Belud on the same day.
Police recovered some of the stolen items from the eatery that had been kept inside an abandoned house.
Mohan added the suspects had been remanded further for investigation under Section 395/397 of the Penal Code for gang robbery and armed robbery, the penalty of which is a jail term of 20 years and shall be liable to whipping, if found guilty.