In the most lucrative heist of the sort this year, robbers in Athens snatched 350,000 euros at gunpoint yesterday from private security guards in an armored cash delivery van.

The three gunmen struck at 10.30 a.m. on busy Liossion Street in Kato Patissia, western central Athens, stopping the van outside a Sklavenitis supermarket where the guards had gone to fill up a National Bank of Greece automatic teller machine (ATM).

Firing twice in the air to quell any thought of resistance, the robbers forced the three guards out of the van. After relieving them of their sidearms, the gunmen removed six sacks containing a total of 350,000 euros from the van and made their escape. According to initial reports, the guards told police that the robbers appeared to be foreigners.

It was the largest robbery of the kind this year. Banks remain the main target for armed robberies, with dozens of heists recorded since January, although cash delivery vans are also attacked.

Last October, 5.9 million euros were found to have been stolen from a Bank of Greece vault in Kalamata.