attempted robbery

Over the past days several people were robbed after making an appointment to either buy or sell a cellphone through Marktplaats. The robberies happened in Rotterdam, Vlaardingen and Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht. All victims were threatened with a firearm, the police said in a statement.

On Tuesday evening around 8:00 p.m. two men from Utrecht were robbed at gunpoint in Rotterdam. They had an appointment to buy a cellphone. When they were in a car with the sellers, the sellers pulled out a gun instead of the phone. The Utrecht men were robbed of several thousand euros.

A 14-year-old boy from Rosmalen tried to rob a toy store in his hometown on Thursday evening. He was later arrested after he called the police for an unrelated matter, the police said in a statement on Friday.

The boy, dressed in face covering clothing and carrying a knife, walked into the toy store on Weidestraat around 5:45 p.m. He demanded that the shop owner and assistant, both behind the counter at the time, give him money. The shop owner called the police instead, and the boy ran.

A Rabobank employee suspected of working with robbers, tipped the robbers about a customer who withdrew 100 thousand euros from a branch in Venlo. The man from Mulheim in Germany was robbed on the street a short time later, the Limburger reports.

The suspected bank employee worked at Rabobank's customer service department three days a week. He told the police that the robbers were blackmailing him with incriminating information. He cooperated with them because he feared for his job. 

A 14-year-old boy attempted to rob an elderly couple at gunpoint in their home on Keltenoord in Rotterdam on Monday evening. He turned himself in at the police station in The Hague later that same night.

The police yesterday arrested a second suspect in the attempted houseboat robbery on Panamakade in Amsterdam. The investigation is still ongoing and the police expect that there may be one more arrest.

The court in Cambodia today sentenced a homeless man to 13 years in prison for the murder of a Dutch woman and her baby daughter during an attempted robbery at their home in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.