It is understood that the 39-year-old bachelor, who lives in George Town, took a bus with the express intention to break into the machine in Lintang Bukit Penara in Balik Pulau.

Barat Daya district police chief Kamarul Rizal Jenal said they received information about the incident from the bank’s management at 10pm, which detected the incident after the bank’s alarm system was triggered.

“A police team was deployed to the location and when they arrived there, the police found a man and observed that he had broken the outside of the CDM machine using a car’s shock absorber to take money from inside the machine,” he said, according to a Bernama report.

The investigation found that the suspect had four previous drug-related charges and admitted to breaking into the CDM due to the “bleakness of his life”.

“The police have not ruled out the possibility that the man acted in such a way due to stress, but further investigations are still underway. The case is being investigated under Section 380 and Section 427 of the Penal Code,” he said.