Initially, Amidon thought the call to be either a joke or an attempt to withdraw him from the Merdeka Day march-past at the very last minute. But he was shocked to learn that one of the most intricately planned crimes in Malaysian history had taken place.

“As we were getting ready, we suddenly received a call that there had been a theft at Subang airport. When the words ‘gold bars’ were uttered, we couldn’t believe it. We never thought that gold bars would be (kept) at Subang airport,” he told FMT in an interview.

Taking advantage of lax security due to the Merdeka celebrations that year, a band of thieves executed a clinical theft of RM12 million worth of gold bars from Subang airport’s cargo area.

The grand theft would go on to be billed as the “Merdeka Heist”.

Amidon, now 72, said the heist was executed following an extraordinary level of planning and through the use of artful disguise by its masterminds, a family hailing from Penang codenamed the “Mamak Gang” by the police.

“After the arrest of this group, (we discovered that their) coordination and planning was very, very good.

How they conducted the planning, how they made observations. They didn’t just do it over a day or two, but it at least took one month,” he said.

He said the plan involved observing which security guards were on duty between 8am and 5pm. The gang would even study the guards’ movement patterns as well as their level of activity.

Investigations also revealed that the culprits had stayed at a nearby hotel for their stakeout, choosing a room facing the airport’s cargo area, and changing up the names under which reservations were made to avoid suspicion by the staff.

CCTV footage reviewed by the cops revealed that five members of the gang had entered the Subang airport cargo area wearing police uniforms.

“From their look, style, manner of speaking, hand gestures, we could see that these were not ordinary laypeople,” said Amidon.

It later transpired that the Mamak Gang, led by brothers Rozland and Sharif Abu Bakar, had made the police uniforms themselves, whereas the police cap they wore could be purchased easily.

Statements provided by security guards on duty revealed that the perpetrators had asked them to help load the loot into three Toyota cars before the heist crew fled the scene, all in under an hour.

Amidon said the culprits neither used violence nor weapons to pull off the heist. They only tied up the guards later to buy themselves some time to escape, even leaving RM50 notes in each of their pockets before fleeing, he said.

Amidon said the gang had pre-planned the heist so well that they had ready buyers waiting in Penang, just several hours after leaving Subang airport.

“From (the) very initial steps to the end, everything (was) very detailed. I salute them,” he said in jest.

It took the police some six months to trace the stolen gold to merchants in Penang, but by then the bars had been melted down and mixed with other metals to make jewellery.

Ten family members of the Mamak Gang were eventually arrested but none was convicted due to a lack of evidence.

Amidon said the police instead applied emergency laws to banish the gang members and place them under restricted residence for two years.