A small business owner in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah experienced one of the biggest fright of his life when his RM230,744 in cash was stolen in almost a split second.

Fortunately, the swift action of the First Response Motorcycle (FRM) team at the Kota Kinabalu Police Station managed to arrest the culprit after he smashed the window of the businessman's Nissan Almera and fled with the cash yesterday morning. 

At about 11.45 AM, the 40-year-old victim had parked his car in the parking lot near the bus stop in Likas Square to transfer the cash from the sale of his family's retail business in the serviced apartment building. When he returned to his car, he found that his car alarm was triggered and the mirror appeared to be broken. It's not long before he realized that two bags containing cash collected from his business worth RM230,744 had indeed been stolen. 

According to the Kota Kinabalu District Police Chief, Assistant Commissioner Mohd Zaidi Abdullah, the incident was witnessed by the public who claimed that the suspect was seen breaking the car's window before stealing two heavy bags and crossing the road to the other direction. 

Thanks to the quick action of the public who called the authorities, crime prevention patrols who happened to be in the area managed to catch the culprit just in time. They intercepted and detained a PROTON Iswara car ridden by two men on the side of Jalan Teluk Likas, near a school.

"FRM members arrested the driver, however another suspect who was sitting in the front passenger seat managed to escape," Mohd Zaidi said. "After inspection, our team managed to find RM185,744 in cash in the car while the remaining RM45,000 was taken away by the other suspect,". 

The suspect still at large was identified as 33-year-old Fredius George. As of now, the investigation into the case is still ongoing and is currently investigated under Section 379 of the Penal Code for the offense of stealing which carries a jail term of up to seven years or a fine or both, as well as whipping.