Fortunately it ended without any consequence the robbery carried out by a man, a 27-year-old in camouflage and balaclava, who held a dozen people hostage for several hours inside theLeidseplein Apple Storein Amsterdam.
At the moment, the details of the operation that led first to the release of most of the people who were blocked in the store, which unfolds on several floors, are not known, then to the arrest of the man after the hostage he had kept under shooting for many hours had managed to escape.
The attacker attempted to chase the hostage, who had managed to free himself, outside the shop but was immediately stopped by the police who hit him with an armored car. While the man lay motionless on the ground, the police checked for explosives with a robot and then took him away in an ambulance. At the moment, the conditions of the attacker are not known and investigations are underway to track down a possible accomplice that he would have managed to escape immediately.
The videos and images shared on social networks showed the man who he threatened the hostage by pointing a gun to his temple. Several witnesses also reported hearing several gunshots. According to the media, it was not a terrorist act but rather an attempted robbery that ended badly. However, immediately after the police intervention, the nearby square was cleared and cordoned off and all the shops in the area were closed. Between the police and the attacker there were several attempts at negotiation which also led to the request for 200 million euros in cryptocurrency and the certainty of being able to escape safely.
It is absolutely not the first time that a robbery has been attempted in an Apple Store, we recall for example the one in California a few years in which a booty of 30 thousand dollars was made in just 20 seconds, but it is certainly the first time that in a store of the Cupertino company such an episode occurs. Apple, at the moment, has not commented on the incident.
