Budapest - In Hungary's sixth bank robbery in just two weeks, an armed man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses demanded cash on Wednesday morning from a branch of Unicredit bank in a Budapest shopping centre before making his escape on foot.

A couple of hours later, an armed man robbed a security van of several sacks of money outside another mall on the other side of the city. The police said they have no reason so far to think the crimes were connected.

A mini crime wave of Hungarian bank robberies began on January 13, when an armed man, also in baseball cap and sunglasses, demanded money after disarming a security guard at a branch of Erste Bank in a Budapest suburb.

Police arrived after tellers sounded the alarm, and the robber briefly held the guard hostage before fleeing on foot. He disappeared into a nearby ten-storey communist-era block of flats, reportedly with the equivalent of 18,000 dollars.

Despite a door to door search by anti-terrorist officers, the police were unable to find the robber.

Since then there have been another three bank robberies in Budapest and two elsewhere in Hungary. Throughout the whole of last year there were just 22 bank robberies in Hungary.

Not all of this year's would-be Hungarian Butch Cassidys got away with it, however. On Monday, a middle-aged man walked into a bank in the small town of Szombathely and announced: "This is a robbery, give me the money!"

He repeated his demand several times despite showing no sign of possessing a weapon. Police arrived and arrested the hapless criminal, who put up no resistance. He could face up to eight years in prison.

The same day, however, there were two successful bank robberies in in Hungary, one of them on a busy street in Budapest. (dpa)