Gunmen attack GEA, tie guards, steal fuel marker

Oct 01, 2010 News

The storage area that the gunmen targeted

…action captured on security cameras

Four gunmen stormed the Quamina Street head office of the Guyana Energy Agency shortly after 03:00 hours, yesterday, held two female security guards at gunpoint and eventually escaped with a quantity of fuel markers.
The gunmen attacked the compound, which is located across the road from Cara Lodge. The gate was open, and two of them walked to the guard hut. The female security guards, Gloria Redman, 58, and Sharon Harding, immediately came under the gun.
One of the gunmen took Redman, bound her hands and legs then led her to the back of the building where he left her.
Harding was subjected to a gun to her head throughout the robbery. She also saw another gunman at the entrance to the compound.
She reported that two of the gunmen then went to the container, cut the chain and padlocks that secured it and removed the container. She managed to attract the attention of the guard across the road who freed her. Her colleague was panic-stricken at this stage.
Neither of them could recall when any police ranks arrived at the location. Redman was almost incoherent by the time she was relieved from the post four hours later. Harding was not much better.
Later, Administrative Manager Darren Khan, would only say that he was not at the scene and that he was only privy to bits and pieces of information.
He referred all queries to Chief Executive Officer Mahendra Sharma who was incommunicado. His secretary informed anyone that he was not in office all day.
The staff declined to talk to any reporter, expressing a fear of dismissal.
It turned out that both Khan and Sharma viewed the footage recorded by the security cameras. One camera recorded every action by the gate; another captured all that transpired at the container in which the fuel marker was stored and the others captured images from other sections of the compound.
They reportedly saw everything that the armed invaders did. There were unconfirmed reports that the two men were also able to determine the ethnicity of the men who were masked.
The police have lifted prints.
Asked about the implication of the stolen fuel marker, Khan, the Administrative Manager, said that the impact should be negligible. However, experts say that nothing could be further from the truth since hundreds of thousands of gallons of legitimate fuel is in the system. The introduction of illegal fuel mixed with the stolen marker will go unnoticed.
The presence of illegal fuel in the system forced the introduction of fuel markers. Staff members within the system then arranged for the marker to be sold to fuel dealers. GEA was then forced to repeatedly change the composition of the fuel marker.
Fuel markers are poured into legally imported fuel to distinguish it from smuggled fuel.