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Six charged for $13.4M heist at GTT’s Giftland store
Kaieteur News – Six persons who are accused of carting off with $13.4million in cash and $6 million in cheques from the GTT store at the Giftland Mall on September 8, were on Thursday charged and remanded to prison for the crime.
Remanded, Osman Brummell
Remanded, Jamal Haley
The accused, Andrea Dover, 25, a cleaner of Lot 616 D Field Sophia, Priecy Roberts, 30, a businessman of Lot 22 Tucville, Georgetown, Ashley Mansfield, 27, a cleaner of Lot 100 Victoria Road, Plaisance, East Coast Demerara, Jamal Haley, 24, a labourer of Lot 461 D Field, Sophia, Greater Georgetown, Ryan Goodluck, 24, of Lot 928 Herstelling Housing Scheme, East Bank Demerara, and Osman Brummell, 39, a vendor of Lot 63 Cross Street, Werk-en-Rust all made their first court appearance at the Sparendaam Magistrates Court yesterday before Magistrate Alicia George where they were all charged with the offence of robbery under arms.
The defendants pleaded not guilty to the charge and were then remanded to prison and are all expected to reappear in court on October 26, 2022. It was reported that two gunmen posing as security guards from the Amalgamated Security Services Limited (ASSL) had entered the Giftland Mall around 21:45hrs on September 8 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.
Remanded, Ashley Mansfiled
Remanded, Priecy Roberts
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 Roberts, and they located him and at the time of his arrest the car was black and white.
During interrogation, Roberts, 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 police 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 Andrea Dover, a cleaner with Giftland Mall’s GTT branch.
Remanded, Andrea Dover
Remanded, Ryan Goodluck
She confessed that she was the one who had set-up the robbery but was not the mastermind. She told police the mastermind was Jamal Haley 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 Haley 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 in her back yard. On September 11, police made another breakthrough after they located the residence of Biggs at Victoria Road, Plaisance, East Coast Demerara (ECD) but he was not 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 got it 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, 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.
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