bank

Working in a bank seems like a fairly boring job most days. You talk to customers, fill out some paper work, deal with large sums of cash that you can’t use in awesome rap videos, and hope there aren’t any crazy people looking for a quick payday. But what happens when one of those crazy people walks into your branch and demands a bunch of money? Well, if you’re lucky, it goes about as well as it did for this bumbling bank robber in Chiba Prefecture.

Around 9:40 am on Friday morning, a 175-cm-tall man wearing a medical mask and dressed in a dark blue sweater and pants walked into a Keiyou Bank branch in Ichihara City and approached the counter. Holding a can with some sort of liquid in it, the man threatened the female clerk, saying, “This is a bank robbery.” He then inexplicably proceeded to pour the contents of the can, which apparently smelled like gasoline, onto the floor.

▼ We don’t know what he had in mind, but this can’t be a good way to steal cash.

fire

Perhaps believing that he’d made his point, the masked man attempted to climb up onto the counter, but instead fell backwards, landing on the ground. Rising to his feet, the would-be thief turned and ran out of the bank without taking anything. There were about 20 people in the branch at the time, though fortunately no one was hurt, besides perhaps the fleeing criminal’s ego.

Ichihara City police are currently looking for the “crook” for attempted theft, though the mask seems to have successfully stymied search efforts. So, we guess he did get one thing right.

Japanese Internet users were amused:

LOL. Maybe it was just a gag??

I bet the clerk had a hell of a time trying not to laugh.

I bet this guy was thinking, “And I was trying be all cool about it!”

And then everyone in the branch burst out laughing. The end.

It would have been even more hilarious if he’d been backing out of the bank and smacked his face on the door turning around.

From “This is a bank robbery!” to falling off the counter, this is like a professional comedy show!

It’s probably best for the thief anyway. That couldn’t possibly have ended any better for him. LOL

Yeah, we imagine that “attempted robbery” carries a much less severe punishment than actual robbery…If only all bank heists went this badly! The news would be a lot more entertaining.

Sources: Itai News 2channeru, Suponichi
Image sources: Wikipedia (gasoline fire), Chintai