THEY took the same lift as him after he left the bank and made his way to his car at a nearby multi-storey carpark.
Although the two men made 56-year-old Ooi Chun Hua uneasy, they did not do anything.
So the Singapore businessman got into his car and drove off. Fifteen minutes later, at a traffic light, they struck.
The same two men who had followed him earlier pulled their motorcycle alongside the left side of Mr Ooi's car.
'They smashed my left backseat window, grabbed my bag and then rode off,' said Mr Ooi.
'It happened so fast, I couldn't even react.'
Mr Ooi runs a business manufacturing printed circuit boards in Johor Baru (JB).
In his bag was RM30,000 ($12,600), which he had just withdrawn from Public Bank at Jalan Wong Ah Fook. The money was for paying his employees' salaries.
The robbery happened on 30Oct. Mr Ooi made a police report in JB shortly after on the same day.
Apart from the money, he also had his bank book and cheque book in the bag.
Puzzled as to why the men did not strike earlier at the multi-storey carpark, Mr Ooi went back and found closed-circuit TV cameras installed in the lift and at the carpark.
The police have the CCTV footage and Mr Ooi said he would be working with them to identify the suspects.
He has since retrieved the bag, his bank and cheque book, but the money is gone.
A day after the incident, Mr Ooi said he received a call from an anonymous man.
The person told him that he had found his bag at Waterfront, an area near JB's immigration point at the Causeway.
The caller said he had traced Mr Ooi's address from a business card he found in the bag, and had arranged for a taxi driver to send the bag to Mr Ooi's company on the same day.
Bag retrieved
Mr Ooi, who received the bag that day, said: 'I don't suspect that he could be an accomplice because I think the robbers would not bother to send me the bag.'
He added that the day after he got his bag back, the caller phoned again to check that he had received it, and then identified himself as 'Mr Li', a retiree living in JB.
Mr Ooi is just thankful that he was not hurt.
As for the lost money, he said he had no choice but to fork out another RM30,000 to pay his employees.
'It's unfortunate, but it has to be done.'
Mr Ooi lives in Singapore and travels almost every day across the Causeway. He has been running his business in JB for three years.
The incident has left him shaken. After all, this was the second time he had been robbed in JB.
The first was in February, just after Chinese New Year.
On that occasion, Mr Ooi had parked his car at the roadside and gone for dinner.
'When I came back, my car window was smashed and my office bag was gone,' he recalled.
He lost a few hundred Singapore dollars, his identity card, driving licence and cheque book.
Police have not caught the thief.
The Straits Times had reported in September that 256 crimes was reported by Singaporeans in Johor from January to August this year with 177 cases involving motorcycle theft, while the rest was made up of snatch, vehicle and petty thefts.
After the two incidents, Mr Ooi said he would now be more careful when he is in JB. 'I won't withdraw money at the end of the month,' he said.
He also advised Singaporeans to be careful with their belongings when they are there.
This article was first published in The New Paper on Nov 11, 2008.
