Police say five teenagers accused of plotting to rob a south Canberra club are suspects in relation to two similar robberies committed in recent months.
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And the ACT Magistrates Court has heard three arrested at the doors of the Burns Club in Kambah were armed, masked, gloved and wearing overalls.
But two allegedly caught in the intended getaway car - Harley Dean Stott and Christopher James Rowland - told the court they were headed to the shops.
Their three co-accused Benjamin Thomas Joyce, Lochlan Hinder and William John Callan did not seek bail yesterday.
All five are aged 18 or 19, and family members including Stott's mother sat in the public gallery for the hearing.
Detective Senior Constable Simon Roscoe told the court four of the defendants were alleged to have cased the club about a week before Thursday's arrests.
The court heard 18-year-old Stott signed Callan, Hinder and Joyce in at the venue on December 1.
The prosecution has alleged Stott's role in signing his friends in during the reconnaissance was ''key to the planning of this incident''.
The police officer said the four were captured on closed circuit television, and at least two appeared to be exploring the club's layout.
Police began surveillance and on Thursday tailed a car registered to Joyce driving to various locations in south Canberra.
Shortly before midnight it parked at the Kambah Village shops, 200m from the alleged target.
Investigators alleged they saw Hinder, Callan and Joyce riding pushbikes from an underpass up to the Burns Club doors.
The prosecution alleges Hinder was armed with a meat cleaver and wearing a mask styled after the horror film Scream; Callan was allegedly carrying a knife and police say Joyce was armed with a hatchet. Police arrested them at the locked entrance to the club lobby.
The court heard the car reversed away and appeared to be leaving the area before police stopped the vehicle, finding Rowland behind the wheel and Stott in the passenger seat.
Both sought bail yesterday, although neither had a lawyer, and told Magistrate Beth Campbell they were simply on their way to the shops.
''It's hard to hear your submissions in relation to bail when what you say to me just doesn't make sense,'' the magistrate told Stott yesterday.
And Constable Roscoe said police were exploring links between the alleged foiled heist and robberies at Coles in Curtin and the Woden Tradies Club in the past four months.
The officer said the alleged offences shared a ''modus operandi'' - weapons, masks and similar clothing - with the Burns Club incident.
The court heard Rowlands, a Queenslander, was only in town for his girlfriend's high school formal and posed a flight risk.
Magistrate Campbell said she might have bailed him if anyone had been in court to offer a cash surety.
But she said the risks he might flee the territory and Stott might reoffend were too great to release either of them on bail. All five are due back in court later this month.
