Northernmost Inhabited Area Just Had Its First Bank Robbery

Congratulations (?), Svalbard
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 22, 2018 8:30 AM CST
Northernmost Inhabited Area Just Had Its First Bank Robbery
A sign warning of polar bears is seen Feb. 25, 2008, outside of Longyearbyen, Norway, on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, as far north as you can fly on a scheduled flight.   (AP Photo/John McConnico)

There's a first time for everything, and this week in a remote Norwegian archipelago, that first was a bank robbery. The Guardian reports an armed man pulled off the feat in Svalbard, located in the Arctic Ocean just a tad over 600 miles from the North Pole and said to be the northernmost inhabited place in the world. Police say the suspect was a foreign national, per Sky News. He is said to have had a gun and "seized a sum of money," the rep for a local governor tells AFP, via the Guardian. The man was subsequently caught and arrested in the town of Longyearbyen, where most of its 2,000 or so residents know each other. Not much else has been revealed about the man's identity, weapon of choice, or how much cash he tried to take. (This bank robber balked and tried to open an account instead.)

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