4 confess to involvement in robbery at GTT’s store at Giftland Mall

Sep 14, 2022 News

– Cleaner admits to providing key details

Kaieteur News – Detectives have cracked the $13.4M GTT robbery case which took place on Wednesday last at the Giftland Mall, Turkeyen, Georgetown. Four suspects involved were captured and one of them, identified as the getaway driver, told Police that he had used his share in the robbery to pay off his mother’s medical bills and buy some clothes while a cleaner employed with GTT said that she was the one who had set up the whole thing.

Two gunmen dressed up as security guards from the Amalgamated Security Services Limited (ASSL) had entered the Giftland Mall around 21:45hrs on Wednesday and robbed the GTT Store located on the second floor of $13.4M in cash and $6M in cheques. The mall was closed at the time and no one suspected that they were bandits because ASSL is the company that would normally conduct GTT’s Cash in Transit Services – uplift cash after the store ends its operation for the day and deposits same into the bank.

The Giftland Mall where the GTT store was robbed

Police were able to crack the case in a matter of days after tracking down the getaway car used in the robbery – a white old model Toyota Raum. Detectives were able to ascertain that the car belonged to Piercy Quason, a 26-year-old mechanic of Meadow Brook Gardens, Georgetown. They located him and at the time of his arrest the car was black and white. During interrogation, Quason, according to police, admitted to being the getaway driver on the night of the robbery. He said the car was entirely white when the crime was committed because he had used white wrap to cover the black colour on the bonnet and the top.

He then led cops to his home where he gave them cash amounting to $500,000, half of the total share that he had received from his participation in the multi-million dollar heist.
When asked what he did with the other half, he said that he had purchased some clothes for himself and paid off his mother’s medical bills. Police retrieved the clothes as part of their evidence and continued their investigation and it led them to detaining 25-year-old Andrea Dover, a cleaner with Giftland Mall’s GTT branch and a resident of D Field, South Sophia, Georgetown.

She confessed that she was the one who had set-up the robbery but was not the mastermind. She told police the mastermind was Jomal Halley called “Biggs” and reportedly said that he was the one who had approached her to plan the robbery. Dover’s job, this publication was informed, was to give Halley key details about the movements of cash from GTT, including the security company that uplifted it and the time of pick-ups. She was also tasked with identifying all the entrance and exit points of the building.

For her role, the bandits paid her $800,000 and that cash, she said, was given to her sister for safe keeping. Police contacted the sister and found the money stashed in a fowl pen at the back of her yard.

On Sunday, police made another breakthrough after they located the residence of Biggs at Victoria Road, Plaisance, East Coast Demerara (ECD) but he was not at home. They detained his girlfriend who was there and she told them that indeed he was involved in the robbery.

The girlfriend recalled him arriving home with “a lot of cash” and when she asked him where he it got from, he confessed to her that it was during the robbery at Giftland and it was for her.
While police continued their search for Biggs, they found his alleged accomplice, 28-year-old Ryan Goodluck, at Barr Street, Kitty and arrested him. He denied that he was part of the robbery. However, police found a total of $286,420 in cash in his possession.

After his arrest, it did not take detectives long to locate Biggs. They arrested him at Cummings Lodge, ECD and he reportedly confessed too. He even handed over a total of $1.1M to police which he had given to a bus driver for safe keeping.
An investigation is ongoing.