A morning robbery in Cullinan proved fruitless for 15 men who held up a cash-in-transit vehicle only to find the box they had stolen was empty.

Pretoria police said robbers travelling in a Mercedes-Benz car crashed head-on into a Fidelity Guard vehicle on Monday. Occupants in a bakkie behind the Mercedes then stopped and joined in the hold-up.

The robbers apparently used picks, hammers and crowbars to break into the guards’ vehicle.

They managed to steal only one of the three cash boxes - the one without cash in it.

It was found abandoned a few metres from the scene of the robbery.

Austrian police arrested a 28-year-old man who robbed the Salzburg branch of Austrian savings bankSparkasse where he was known as a customer, the APA news agency reported Wednesday.

The Austrian man held up the bank at gunpoint Monday, escaping on foot with a loot of $20,070.

After being identified as a customer by a bank employee, the man was detained by police at a late-night bar in Klagenfurt.

By the time of his arrest Tuesday, the man had guzzled five bottles of champagne in the company of several bar hostesses. APA said the thief did not resist arrest.

A drunken Norwegian who pulled a pair of underpants over his face and robbed a post office was awakened by police two days later to find he had tipped them off about his identity.

The 47-year-old drunk charged into the post office and handed over a note saying “This is a robbery,'’ the local newspaper Bergensavisen said on Friday.

But his wife’s name and personal details were on the back of the demand note, the newspaper said.

The man told a court he did not remember the robbery, but admitted he had a suspicion of having been up to no good when he woke up and saw a picture of the be-knickered robber in the newspaper and found a large wad of money in his living room.

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — A would-be bank robber may have learned a lesson about bankers’ hours.

The man showed up at a Citizen’s Bank branch Monday wearing a mask and carrying a note at 3:08 p.m., eight minutes after the branch lobby closed for the day.

Bank workers watching from a window called police as the man pulled futilely on the locked door, police said. He then fled in a truck.

A police sergeant witnessed the man throwing the mask and a note out the truck window. Both were recovered.

Michael Maslar, 45, surrendered without incident after being stopped by the officer. Police did not find a weapon. Maslar was charged with criminal attempt to commit third-degree robbery and was being held on $500,000 bail.

Police said Maslar, who lives with his 72-year-old mother, is on federal probation for a bank robbery in 1991 in New York state.

A friend of mine works for a tile retailer in western Sydney. They display a lot of tile samples in the front parking lot of the shop for specials and suggested paving combinations.

The shop is on a busy main road.

At the front of the shop, bordering the parking lot, they also have a number of palm trees.

One morning he got to work to find that three of the trees had been removed from the parking lot. Funny thing was, he only had to follow the trail of dirt up the street to a house which was about 100 yards away. The trail of dirt led around the side of the house. When he looked into the back garden he saw the trees planted in the garden, bordering a paved barbeque area, made up of dozens of odd pavers.

I’m not sure how much the house owner was fined.

A man who authorities said unwittingly boasted about the quality of his marijuana to a police officer over an open telephone line remained in Cumberland County Prison on Tuesday under $25,000 bail.

The bizarre chain of events began when Randy Smeltz, 40, called the Middlesex Police Department on Oct. 2 and asked that an officer call him back about a stolen radio, authorites said.

When police returned the call, someone at Smeltz’s home at the Country manor Mobile Home Park picked up the phone but did not ansewer. The officer stayed on the line and took notes while listening to two men and a women talk about illegal drugs, police said.

After a few minutes, apparently still unaware that an officer was on the line, Smeltz picked up the phone and tried to make a call, authorities said. The officer said hello and engaged Smeltz in a conversation.

“Randy told officers to listen to this and inhaled deeply, stating this was good marijuana,” police said in a news release about the case.

Smeltz gave police his address, and two officers went to his residence, authorities said. There, police said Sarah Dawson, 37, who also lives at the trailer park, admitted there was marijuana inside.

Officers confiscated marijuana from Smeltz’s home as well as a dozen marijuana plants growing in a flower beds at his home and at his mother’s home, also in the park.

Smeltz is charged with possession of marijuana and growing marijuana.

Conneaut, OH - A traffic stop Saturday afternoon led to drug-related charges against a local woman, police said.

Misty Bigley, 30, of Conneaut was charged with reckless operation, speeding and possession of drug paraphernalia, police said.

Bigley was initially stopped after she was observed traveling 71 MPH in a 35 MPH zone on Lake Road at 4:14 p.m. police said. The vehicle was stopped and when Bigley requested her purse, a search inside the vehicle uncovered a folding knife, rolling papers and a film canister containing suspected marijuana residue.

Later, police conducting an inventory of items in the van found a pipe with suspected marijuana residue in the bowl. Told of the pipe, Bigley told officers, “Where was it? I was looking for that and I didn’t know where I put it.” police said.