A 30-year-old man will face the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in October over his alleged involvement in four violent armed robberies in Melbourne’s western suburbs earlier this month.
The man was arrested along with a 28-year-old after a siege at a Laverton hotel on July 14.
Heavily armed police swooped on the hotel as part of an “ongoing investigation” into a spate of armed robberies in Brookfield, Brooklyn, Williams Landing and Tarneit on July 10 and July 11.
Footage of an armed robbery in Tarneit surfaced online on Wednesday morning.
The footage shows a man approach a taxi at a service station. He opens the driver’s side door before walking around and pointing what appears to be a gun at the driver’s face.
He then approaches the driver, before returning to look inside the taxi.
A friend of the victim, George Alex-Ellis, told 3AW today that the taxi driver had finished his shift and was filling up his car nearby his house.
“When you’re tired at the end of the day and switching off, you don’t expect anything like that to happened,” Mr Alex-Ellis said. “I would have been petrified.”
He said his friend was scared and didn’t want to draw attention to himself.
Two men have been interviewed by detectives.
A 30-year-old has been charged with armed robbery, theft of a motor vehicle and possessing ammunition.
He will appear before the Melbourne Magistrates’’ Court on October 6 for a committal mention.
A 28-year-old was released pending further inquiries.
A police spokeswoman said the investigation was ongoing.
