The man who carried out an armed robbery at the Caixa Geral de Depósitos branch in Câmara de Lobos on 12 January and fled with around 215 thousand euros admitted this afternoon, at the start of his trial in the Funchal court (Building 2000), to having committed the crime, although he denied some details of the accusation. He assured, for example, that he only took “a water pistol, he didn’t have a real pistol” and that he threw it away after the robbery, as well as other objects he used, because he “felt dirty”. When explaining his actions, the defendant cried in court and expressed regret. He even said that after committing the crime, he wanted to commit suicide, but that he was unable to do so.
To the panel of judges presided over by Joana Dias, the 42-year-old defendant, who is in pre-trial detention and appeared in court visibly nervous, denied having asked the bank manager to turn off the alarm and that such action was the employee’s initiative. He also denied having tied up some of the six people who were in the bank during the robbery with cable ties. He also denied having pointed a knife at anyone. He only admitted that he used a knife to cut the cable ties with which one of the employees was tied, who was not feeling well. “I have never pointed a knife at anyone. You can see on the cameras that I did not carry a knife”, he declared. He also said that “he did not plan anything”.
The defendant is a native and resident of the city centre of Câmara de Lobos, is married and has three minor children. The family had emigrated to England but returned to their homeland about a year ago, and the man found work as a drinks distributor.
As reported by DIÁRIO in its September 29 edition, based on the MP’s accusation, the man was familiar with the routines of the bank branch staff, of which he was a customer. On the day of the robbery, he got up early, around 6:00 am. He put a hood on his head, gloves on his hands and sunglasses and a Covid mask covering his face. He waited for the bank manager to arrive, and at 7:30 am, when he was preparing to enter the bank, he approached him with a pistol or replica (the object was not recovered), following him inside, where he demanded the money from the safe.
The fact that the safe had a delayed opening time and that a second employee’s key was needed prolonged the robbery. The amount of money inside the safe surprised the thief, who was expecting to steal up to 50 thousand euros. In the end, there was more than 215 thousand euros in the safe, enough to fill a supermarket bag. It was so heavy that the defendant had to carry it on his shoulders, despite having removed the bags of coins.
He was only arrested five days later, on the morning of January 17. The PJ recovered around 208 thousand euros from his home. The missing money was spent mainly on purchasing construction materials, as the defendant intended to carry out renovation work on one floor of his home, in order to rent it out later.