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‘Security Guards’ cart off $13.4M from GTT’s store at Giftland Mall
The Giftland Mall
Kaieteur News
By Shervin Belgrave
Two gunmen on Wednesday, who were dressed as security guards from Amalgamated Security Services Limited (ASSL), managed to rob the GTT store located on the second floor at the Giftland Mall, Turkeyen, Georgetown. The bandits managed to escape with $13.4M in cash and another $6M worth of cheques.
According to information received by this media house, the robbery took place after the mall was closed. Police gave the time as 21:45hrs.
Kaieteur News was told that when the men entered the mall disguised as ASSL security guards, no one stopped them or suspected that they were bandits since the security company is contracted by GTT to conduct Cash In Transit (CIT) services. This means that ASSL’s responsibility is to pick-up GTT’s cash from its Giftland Mall branch and deposit it at a bank. This activity would normally be carried out after the store would have ended its operations for the day.
One of GTT’s employees, a female supervisor at the Giftland location, told police that the men were armed with handguns and were using face masks. The fake security guards reportedly entered just as the supervisor and five other employees were wrapping up duties.
Both of them approached her in a room and she unsuspectingly handed over the bags with cash to one of them to check. While he was “checking up the bags,” the other exited the room and held the other employees at gun point and ordered them to lie on the floor.
It was only then that the female security guard realised that they were being robbed but it was too late. The man she had handed the bags of cash to, pulled out his gun and held her at gunpoint before ordering her to lie on the floor too.
The gunmen then duct taped their hands and mouth before locking them in the store and making good their escape, with the cash, through a backdoor that led to the mall’s parking lot. CCTV cameras show that they entered a white old model Toyota Raum and drove off.
After they left, the GTT staffers recalled freeing themselves from the locked store and alerting everyone that they were just robbed.
Speaking with Kaieteur News, the Divisional Manager of the Giftland Mall said that it will work along with GTT and police as an investigation into the robbery continues.
As of now, GTT is said to be conducting its own internal investigation and when the company is finished it is expected to submit a report to the mall and together the two companies will work to strengthen security measures in order to prevent such reoccurrences.
This is the second time in two years that a GTT branch has been robbed at the Giftland Mall. The company reportedly operates two branches at the mall, a small booth on the ground floor and a larger store-like booth on the second floor which was the target this time.
The first robbery took place in February 2020 at the booth on the ground floor. Two men had calmly walked into the mall and robbed the booth of the day’s sales before making good their escape.
CCTV footage allowed police to track down the perpetrators and one of them was nabbed after a shootout at Durban and Haley Streets, Georgetown.
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