Three men wore white hazmat suits when they used a rifle to stick up a truck full of cash outside a Pacific Island airport in broad daylight.

Making off with $600,000 belonging to financial services group Western Union, the trio quickly disappeared after executing what is believed to be Vanuatu's first organised armed robbery.

The brazen heist at Port Vila International Airport on December 29 has stunned Vanuatu and become the talk of a nation unused to such overtly public acts of crime.

Port Vila International Airport is a gateway in Vanuatu for foreign currency. (ABC News: Doug Dingwall)

Local police say the robbery was "well coordinated, well orchestrated, well planned".

In the Pacific country of 330,000 people, where most of the population lives in rural villages on remote islands, armed robberies have until now been more Hollywood than reality.

Social media users responding to the news were quick to liken the airport heist to the movies, as details of the hold-up emerged.

"This is [a] Fast and Furious movie in its extreme heat,"

one commenter said.

"Seems like watching a movie," said another.

In the days following the heist, a public hungry for information waited for more updates on the crime and police investigation.

But local police initially said little, other than a recorded statement released on Facebook in the hours following the robbery.

Port Vila residents told the ABC that rumours filled the vacuum instead.

Most speculation at the nation's kava bars and on social media focused on the identities and whereabouts of the alleged robbers.

Luganville, the main population centre on Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu's north. (ABC News: Doug Dingwall)

But information travels fast in the island nation, and the Vanuatu Police Force appeared to act on its leads on Tuesday when it arrested the alleged heist ringleader at the country's northern island of Santo, before flying him back south to the capital Port Vila.

And finally, on Thursday, police revealed more details of the crime and investigation at a press conference in Port Vila, confirming they had arrested seven other suspects after tracking them down within a week of the robbery.