Friday September 16, 2022
I've Been Thinking:

She robbed a bank in Beirut to get her own money.

Yes, indeed, strange bank robberies are being perpetrated in Lebanon.

There was a brief hostage situation at a Beirut branch of Lebanon's BLOM Bank when an apparently armed woman and her associates demanded money from a teller.  According to a depositors’ advocacy group called Outcry, the woman and her associates left the bank carrying more than $13,000 in cash - from her own account.

Sometime later, according to the advocacy group, an armed man entered a branch of Bankmed in Lebanon's mountain city of Aley and attempted to retrieve his trapped savings.  This incident was corroborated by a security source who spoke to Reuters.

The security source went on to explain that the man retrieved a portion of his money before he handed himself over to security forces and was detained.

Why, you are probably wondering, is this happening?

Lebanon's banks have locked most depositors out of their savings ever since a financial crisis took hold of the country three years ago.  Now, most Lebanese citizens are left without the means to pay for basic needs.  And the government of Lebanon has failed to address this crisis.

As for the woman with the gun, it turns out that the gun was a toy and the reason she needed the money was to pay for her sister’s cancer treatments.  

Speaking to a television station the woman said: "I have nothing more to lose, I got to the end of the road. I went to the branch manager two days ago and said my sister is dying, she doesn't have time." The branch manager gave her some money, but it just wasn’t enough.  

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