First ever Arctic bank robbery

OSLO: A man has robbed a bank on the northernmost settlement in the world, a remote Arctic island in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, but was caught hours later, authorities said on Friday.

The heist was the first ever bank robbery in living memory on the territory, which is located in the Arctic Ocean, about halfway between continental Norway and the North Pole. "There was an armed robbery at around 10.40 am (09:40 GMT)," Terje Carlsen, a spokesman for the local governor, told AFP.

The odds of the heist succeeding were, however, always low on the archipelago, famous for glaciers and ice caps. The capital, Longyearbyen, has around 2,000 inhabitants and practically everyone knows each other. The airport is the main means of leaving the settlement. "A man with a firearm seized a sum of money. He was arrested quite quickly," Carlsen said.