An armed blagger who was surrounded by cops in an Austrian bank filled an idle five hours before his arrest by offering phone customers loans, Ananova reports.

According to Austrian police, Guenther Baum "stormed into the Bawag bank on the main shopping street in Vienna waving a gun". His choice of target, however, proved ill-advised, since the bank was "next door to the country's special forces headquarters and a police station".

Duly surrounded, Baum made his way to the building's first floor with three staff and a customer as hostages, and then rather agreeably "started taking calls from customers offering loans as the police waited outside".

After five hours, Baum gave himself up "leaving the bank to deal with the angry customers who thought they had secured the answer to their financial problems". ®

• Thomas Crown blagger recruits decoy dupes on internet (3 October 2008)
• NZ bank robber stashes loot where the sun don't shine (9 May 2008)
• Swedish plods cuff remote-access robbery ring (31 January 2008)
• Wannabe US bank robber fails intelligibility test (12 November 2007)
• Robber held up bookies with vibrator (21 August 2007)
• Illinois baby issued with firearms permit (17 May 2007)
• Armed cops in Lara Croft bust action (17 May 2007)
• Police charge stripogram cop impersonator (26 April 2007)
• Tunnelling Brazilian blaggers lift $63m (9 August 2005)
• Mobile fingers UK's thickest armed robber (30 November 2004)