Three gangsters snatched a bag containing more than a million yuan from a customer in the lobby of a downtown bank in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province on Tuesday afternoon.

The gangsters robbed the customer in his forties just after he put piles of money into his bag at around 15:00, putting a gun to his back, said a bank security guard.

Frightened of the gun, the depositor and the security guard did not yell out and did not chase after the gangsters. They called the police instead.

The gangsters took the elevator to the underground garage and ran away. There was no security guard there at that time because they were checking cars elsewhere, recalled a security guard.

The gangsters robbed the customer of 870,000 yuan (US$ 111,396), said the security guard. But an insider said the loss could be above 1.5 million yuan (US$ 192,061).

The police cordoned off the bank as soon as they arrived. But so far there is no trace of the robbers.

Four masked men armed with spears and iron sticks robbed a couple of 437,000 yuan (US$ 55,954) in a downtown street in Guangzhou on Aug 5.

(Xinhua News Agency January 11, 2007)