Police inquiries are continuing after an attempted robbery of a service station at Figtree on Saturday.
Both police and an employee said the alleged perpetrator claimed to have a gun with him, but reportedly no weapon was sighted during the incident.
The incident occurred at Metro Petroleum on Bellevue Road, Figtree about 7.30am.
According to police, the man allegedly claimed to have had a weapon in his possession.
However, there was no actual weapon sighted and no one was injured in the incident.
Manager Chandu Uppalapati was the only employee working at the time of the incident.
He told the Mercury that the alleged perpetrator had “pretend(ed) to be having a gun with him”, and asked him to hand over the contents of the till after he had pumped some petrol.
“He took some fuel, came inside and I have asked him to pay for the fuel,” Mr Uppalapati said.
“Then he told me, ‘I’m not going to pay for that, and give me all the money in your till’.
“He told me, ‘I’ve got a gun with me, just give me all the till’.
“I stepped back, raised my hands and told him, ‘I’m not going to give you anything. If you want, you can just come inside and take the till by yourself’.
“He tried to come inside… He came near the entrance, threatened me again, saying, ‘just give me the whole till or else I’ll shoot you’.
“I told him, ‘you’re already near the entrance, you can just come inside and grab it, but I’m not going to give (it to) you’.
“Without entering inside, he just turned back and left.”
Mr Uppalapati described the man as being aged 30 to 40.
Mr Uppalapati said he had handed over what CCTV footage they had to police.
Police investigations are ongoing.
Anyone with information about this incident is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or via https://nsw.crimestoppers.com.au.
Extracted from Illawarra Mercury