GOF southeast brigade acting commander Ijid Landu Binju said they also increased roadblocks after being informed of the robbery.

“We are taking precautionary measures. I have told personnel on duty to tighten controls at roadblocks,” Harian Metro reported him as saying.

Thai police had said they did not reject the possibility that some of the criminals who robbed the gold shop in the Big C shopping complex in Sungai Golok had slipped into Malaysia.

On Monday, New Straits Times reported a Thai security spokesman as saying that two pickup trucks used by the robbers were found abandoned about 1km from the Thai-Malaysian border.

He said the vehicles were discovered in an oil palm plantation between Ban To-oh and Ban Kholoh Tuwa in the Waeng district.

“The robbers stole vehicles from residents in Sungai Padi and used them to carry out the gold shop robbery at the Big C shopping complex here.

“The group used two pickup trucks and two motorcycles in the 10-minute robbery before fleeing along the Sungai Padi-Waeng route,” he said.