SUNGAI PETANI, MALAYSIA - An eccentric businessman, who grabbed the headlines for parading his pet tigress in Bukit Selambau near here on numerous occasions several years ago, has been detained. The 56-year-old was picked up while travelling in an express bus here at 11.45am yesterday.

He and another man, aged 54, were sought by police to help in investigations into a RM3.19 million cash-in-transit robbery in Gurun earlier this year.

The businessman, en route to Kuala Lumpur, was carrying a bag with some clothes and about RM50,000 in local and Indonesian currencies.

A police party, acting on a tip-off, had earlier trailed him from the bus station here. Police stopped the bus as it approached the Sungai Petani police station.

Several detectives, passing off as Road Transport Department officers, boarded the bus on the pretext of carrying out a routine check.

The businessman was calm when the detectives identified themselves. He did not resist arrest when they asked him to follow them.

The businessman had planned to head for Indonesia.

State police chief Datuk Syed Ismail Syed Azizan confirmed the arrest but declined to elaborate.

Police are confident that the two men could help close the case on the Feb 5 robbery where four men, armed with pistols, escaped with an armoured van which was on its way to replenish the cash machines of several banks in Gurun and Alor Star.

The van driver and three security guards had stopped at the North-South Expressway when the robbers struck.

The robbers drove away in the van before abandoning it in a secluded spot several kilometres away. All bags containing the money were missing.

Police have since arrested 12 people, including three women.