Latest update March 20th, 2025 5:10 AM
Latest News
- Guyana’s oil growth boosting regional economies– CDB Director of Economics
- Suspected outbreak of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease in Region Four
- Israel launches first ground offensive since Gaza ceasefire collapse
- Sod turned for $665M expansion of St. Stanislaus College
- Pensioner jailed for raping child
Wanted man hits car dealership
…one day after police bulletin published
The Caricom Auto Sales Lusignan Headquarters.
Even though the police have intensified their efforts to capture him with the setting up of a special unit, a known bandit on the East Coast of Demerara struck again yesterday robbing the Caricom auto sales at Lusignan in another brazen attack.
This time the bandit was aided by an accomplice and both managed to escape in a silver grey motorcar minutes before the police arrived.
The gunman was positively identified from a photograph that was belatedly published by the media, yesterday.
During the robbery, the man tied up two of the auto sales company’s female employees and relieved them of cash and jewellery, in a 30-minute ordeal.
To make matters worse, the ineffectiveness of the police 911 service was once again evident as an eyewitness to the robbery tried in vain to contact the security forces.
Speaking with this newspaper one of the employees related that the two men entered the office posing as customers and greeted her cordially.
Police about to enter the Caricom Auto Sales office, minutes after the bandits had fled.
They then asked for the owner of the establishment as if he was a friend and from all appearances they had their information on the company’s operations spot on.
“They said y’all got any (Toyota). Before I could’a answer, the next one say, ‘whey de next lady deh?’ and with that they pull out their guns and held us up,” the employee told Kaieteur News.
The bandits then ordered the two women into an inner office and threatened to shoot them if they did not cooperate.
The women were then made to lie on the floor and the thieves began stripping them of their jewellery.
“While they were taking out my jewellery, one of them was saying, ‘Shoot, shoot. If the jewellery ain’t coming off, shoot she.’ But they did not shoot. The other woman, she beg them and they did not take her gold band,” the employee explained.
The men bound them with duct tape and proceeded to ransack the place and eventually carted off in excess of $100,000 cash.
But a customer who was on the premises at the time of the robbery believes that had the police 911 number been effective, there was a strong possibility that the two could have been captured.
He said that he was about to enter the office with a female employee when she suddenly turned back and alerted him that bandits were around.
The customer said he ran a short distance away and using his cellular phone, dialed the 911 emergency number.
“I dialed 911 on my GT&T phone and 911 on my DIGICEL phone and I still couldn’t get through. I had to dial 092 and find out a number for the emergency police and they gave me Impact. I called Impact and then Impact telling me to call Sparendaam.
I told them I wasn’t getting through to Sparendaam and then they told me that they were going to call Vigilance,” the customer lamented.
He said that he too ended up calling back the operator to get the Vigilance Police Station after some time had elapsed and by then the bandits had made good their escape.
“I figure they (police) would’a come and catch them. I feel the 911 ain’t wukkin,” the customer said.
Police arrived on the scene and after they were given the description of the bandits they showed the victim newspaper photographs of two wanted men and she immediately picked out Courtney James.
James is wanted for a series of robberies and rape including a robbery committed on the home of Magistrate Nigel Hawke early Monday morning.
The police have set up another special unit to capture him and a senior police officer has advised that business places should make the effort to make a list of the telephone numbers of the nearest police station and position it in an area where it could be easily accessed by anyone on their premises.
Similar Articles
THE BLUNT OF THE DAY
Sports
Features/Columnists
No immigrant should feel safe in America today
Peeping Tom… Kaieteur News- There was a time when an illegal immigrant in America could live in the shadows with some... more
If Guyana’s President Ali is the “Zelensky of the Caribbean”, who is the Putin?
Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the US and the OAS, Ronald Sanders By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News- In the latest... more
Weekend Cartoon
