“Hold! She is not here” - inside staffer texted bank bandits

“Hold! She is not here” – inside staffer texted bank bandits

Jul 08, 2017 News

– Policeman, Rural Constable arrested

“Hold! She is not here”. This is a text message investigators discovered on a phone belonging to one of the three bandits who were involved in the attempted robbery on the Republic Bank Limited, Water Street, Georgetown, on Tuesday morning.

The message was sent to one of the robbers by a bank employee who was in the building before the gunmen had entered, a police source confirmed.

That employee, whose name has not been disclosed, has joined his colleague Jamal Haynes, in police custody.

Kaieteur News was informed that when the bank employee went into work and did not see the female staffer who was supposed to be emptying the night deposits, he texted one of the three bandits—his colleague, the now dead Elton Wray or Keron Saunders.

However, by this time the men were already making their way to the bank and did not bother to check their phones.

While this could not be confirmed, it is suspected that the staffer who was inside the bank had messaged Haynes’ phone.

Additionally, a policeman and a rural constable were arrested yesterday after ranks from the Guyana Police Force (GPF)’s Major Crimes Department (MCU) received information that they were a part of the plot.

Kaieteur News was informed that while Saunders has been cooperating with the police, Haynes, who was shot to both legs, has remained tight-lipped.

According to information received, Haynes and his gang were planning on getting their hands on the night deposits since it was a three-day weekend and companies would have deposited millions or even billions into the chute.

The robbery on the bank had been planned three months before. The men even hijacked a car the night before.

As had been customary, a female staff was supposed to be at the bank at 07:10 hrs on Tuesday and should have been emptying the chute and taking the cash to the vault.

According to the bandits’ plan, when they entered the bank, they would have held the staffers hostage and seized the woman who would have been emptying the chute—there they would have grabbed a few bags of cash and escaped.

Everything went according to the plan until the three bandits got into the bank and Haynes did not see his colleague who had access to the chute.

“He panicked because the woman was not around. She had not arrived at work, so they began checking the canister for cash. They then went to the vault and were knocking on it to get it open,” a staffer at the financial institution said.

This newspaper was told that the woman, who the men wanted, was at the back entrance of the bank at 07:30 hrs, when she learnt of the commotion and went away.

Meanwhile, Haynes’ senior colleague and junior staffers were in the vaults when they saw what was ocurring on camera. They immediately called the bank’s security manager who then called the police.

By this time, a Professional Guard Services (PGS) outfit that was in the vicinity, reached the scene in less than a minute.

Wray, an agronomist, was shot dead, while his accomplices were arrested during a 10-minute shoot-out between them, the guard service and the police.