Those post-bank robberies

Mar 07, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Banks are no longer safe places to visit. In just one week alone, four persons were attacked and robbed of substantial amounts of cash after leaving commercial banks.
One of the victims was shot and had to be hospitalized.
On February 21, 2018, an electrical contractor was shot and relieved of $800,000 after leaving a bank. The following day, an employee of the CARICOM Secretariat was robbed in front of his home shortly after making a withdrawal from a commercial bank. Four days later, an importer was relieved of $2M in cash after leaving a bank. Two days after this incident, a 67-year-old representative of the Guyana Deaf Mission was relived of cash and valuables by armed men after conducting a transaction at a bank.
There have been many other similar incidents in the past. The police are no closer to getting to the bottom of what or who is behind this spate of robberies which take place after persons have left banks. In fact, the police appear clueless as to how the robbers were aware that their victims had made withdrawals from the banks.
The public sphere, however, is awash with theories. One view which is gaining increasing traction is that the bandits are being provided with information by accomplices working within the banks. The banks are denying that their employees are involved. However, the public is skeptical, especially when it is recalled that last year, employees of a major commercial bank were fingered in an early morning attempted heist during which workers were held hostage and one of the bandits was killed in a shootout with ranks from a security service.
The view that crooked bank employees are colluding with criminals is not far-fetched. During the crime wave of 2002- 2008, the criminal underworld established a network of contacts of persons operating within businesses and government offices. The criminals, on the outside, would be fed with information from inside these places, and it is this information which was used to execute the brazen and spectacular robberies of those times.
The police may have destroyed the criminal cells which were principally responsible for the robberies and murders during that period. But the networks these cells established within organizations and businesses have not been dismantled and the inside contacts may have regrouped under new criminal cells.
This is why employers must be careful about who they employ. They have to carry out checks before they employ someone, and even during the course of their employment, because these persons may be feeding elements on the outside about what is taking place on the inside. There are bound to be criminal plants within banks, offices and even within the government. There are many persons who are applying for jobs, but it is not the work they are interested in. They are interested in getting into your business so they can observe what is happening and feed that information to their partners outside.
The criminals on the outside have also become sophisticated. They are not all rough-cut. They have some smooth-talking, well-dressed and savvy characters around who will sweet talk some female bank employees and get them to feed information to them.
There is also the theory that criminals are operating as customers within the banks. It is felt that there are criminal lookouts who join the lines at banks and pretend to be conducting business when, in fact, they are looking to see the persons who are making large withdrawals. It is for the banks to reduce lines and persons having to wait in the banks for service so as to reduce this possibility.
Another theory is that the external environment of most banks has become unsafe. You do not know when you step out of a bank who is watching you. There was a time when no vending was allowed outside of any banks. This is not the case anymore. Persons are vending outside of banks and criminals may be able to secrete themselves amongst these vendors and to spy on persons leaving the banks. Hire car operators are also operating outside the banks and they too can be a potential source of information for bandits.
A collective response is therefore needed to help reduce the high incidence of persons being robbed after leaving banks. The local authorities must not allow vending and the parking of vehicles outside of banks. The banks must reduce waiting time for services, so that customers making large withdrawals are not easily observed by other customers. And all businesses, including banks, must be careful about who they employ. They must monitor their employees during their employment to ensure that they are not cavorting with criminal elements.

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