At least two cars stolen every month in Guyana

Oct 23, 2022 News

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The Detective…

By Shervin Belgrave

Kaieteur News – Police in recent years have reported making a major dent in carjacking rings by arresting several suspects and placing them before the court. Be that as it may, car theft in Guyana continues to take place at an alarming rate. For this year alone, an average of two cars are being stolen each month, and this is based only on cases reported by the media. Within the last five months, 12 cars were reported stolen-some carjacked and others removed from in front of houses while the victims were asleep.

However, Kaieteur News has received unverified stats that the number of cars stolen in the five-month period is more than double that number, and it seems as though the police have not been keeping a steady eye on such crimes. This newspaper has reached out to the police to verify the number of car thefts that has taken place for the year, but almost two months have passed and it is yet to provide that information.

A senior official had related that ranks were now gathering stats of reported car thefts from the various police districts across the country, including information on how many cases were solved and how many stolen vehicles were recovered. This process, he said, will take a while. If, indeed, ranks have not been giving as much attention as is required to car theft in the country, then it could be one of the contributing reasons why carjacking has become a prominent feature of organized crime that is proving difficult to stop.

It has become such a lucrative criminal venture that even some ranks have gotten involved, but in recent years, the police have been doing their best to dismantle what it calls carjacking rings. In February 2018, it made headlines after an ex-cop and a woman were among several people arrested for stealing cars.  It was described as a major dent in a carjacking ring because not only were detectives able to arrest suspects, but they also discovered several suspected stolen vehicles and spare parts at North Vryheid’s Lust, East Coast Demerara and Monument Hill, Kuru Kururu, Soesdyke/Linden Highway.

It was suspected that the vehicles were carjacked and stripped into parts, which were being resold on the local market. The carjackers were primarily targeting Toyota Premio and Allion motorcars. Cars were reportedly being stolen on a daily basis countrywide and the police made arrests. Suspects were charged and investigations had revealed that the busted gang had stolen over a hundred vehicles in an operation that stretched from the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) to Linden, Region Ten.

Despite that achievement, carjacking continues and Guyanese continue to live in fear of being the next victim.

The trail would run cold as carjackers cover up their tracks to avoid being caught. Police got a break again in April 2020 while looking for a silver-grey Fielder Wagon that was hijacked from taxi driver, Shameer Shafeek at Ruby, East Bank Essequibo. Shafeek was hired by some passengers on the night of March 22, 2020 at his taxi base located in Tuschen for a trip to Ruby. A woman was among them, so Shafeek was unaware that they were carjackers.  When he arrived at the destination, one of the male passengers placed a gun to his head and kicked him out of his car. The investigation led police to the backlands of St. Cuthbert’s Mission along the Soesdyke/Linden Highway where they recovered the shell of Shafeek’s car. The carjackers had stripped the car of all of its parts, including the engine. Several other shells of stolen cars were found nearby. Detectives had some suspects, but no one was captured and the carjacking continued.

In January 2022, the police were successful again when the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) made another dent in a carjacking ring. This time charging a workshop owner, Ravin Singh, and a prominent auto dealer, identified as Andrew Samaroo Archibald. SOCU was called in to investigate after a taxi driver, Steve Mootooveren was lured into a trap by a young woman to be hijacked of his brand-new Toyota Allion at Cane View Avenue South Ruimveldt. Mootooveren was plying his trade at the Giftland Mall, Turkeyen, greater Georgetown when the woman hired him around 18:30hrs on January 15. The taxi driver had told The Waterfalls that he does not accept hires to certain areas in Georgetown at night because he feared being robbed, but it was a woman and she looked innocent. He did not expect that the harmless looking woman was leading him into a trap to be hijacked when they arrived at their destination. She disappeared and a gunman dragged him out of his car and drove away with it.

SOCU ranks would later recover his car, getting repainted at a workshop located at Montrose, ECD. The carjackers had already changed the number plate and some of the parts, but the investigators had busted them before they could have filed off the chassis number. SOCU managed to locate another car stolen by the same ring at another workshop at Happy Acres, ECD, a Toyota Premio that was stolen in November 2021 from in front of its owner’s home at Beterverwagting. The investigation led them to detain six persons including the gunman, “Turbo” who allegedly hijacked Mootooveren, but the young woman involved was never caught.

A wanted bulletin was issued for the auto dealer, Archibald and he later turned himself in. The SOCU detectives had learnt that the carjacking ring was well-organized, and were reselling stolen cars and parts in a way that was difficult to trace. Ring leaders would buy crashed cars and then send out members to steal and hijack similar ones. They would take the stolen cars to workshops and their mechanics were tasked with making them look exactly like the legally bought crashed cars. They would even cut off the chassis number from the crashed vehicles and weld them onto the stolen ones.

When finished, the stolen vehicles would be resold to unsuspecting customers and the remaining parts would be sold as spares on the local market. Their style of operating made it difficult for the police to catch them because all their transactions and paperwork were legal. Customers too did not have a clue that they were buying stolen vehicles because they looked like legally purchased vehicles that were repaired. Many thought that after the bust, carjacking would slow down but instead it increased. In June, three Premio cars were car hijacked, two were recovered – one intact and one stripped. Police were able to link one of the car hijackings which took place on the West Bank Demerara to a Tactical Services Unit (TSU) rank and cops arrested him and an accomplice. They are presently before the court facing charges.

The following month, two more Premio vehicles disappeared – one belonging to a Customs Anti Narcotic Unit (CANU) officer and another to Kaieteur News. Police recovered the CANU officer’s car at Paradise, ECD, stripped of its $700,000 music system and other parts, while Kaieteur News’ car is still missing. No suspects were arrested that month and in August, five more vehicles were stolen but it was an eventful month and the police were able to recover some – just shells, while others luckily intact – and arrest several suspects; one was shot dead and eight remanded to prison – among them an ex-cop.

In one case, a woman was car hijacked of her Fielder Wagon in Berbice. She accused her ex-boyfriend and police were able to track him down in Essequibo Region Two. They recovered the vehicle and nabbed him hiding out at a location. In another case, five carjackers had abducted a taxi driver on the East Coast. They stole his car and locked him inside the trunk before heading on a robbery spree with the stolen vehicle.

They did not get far because cops caught up with them on Mandela Avenue and engaged them in a shoot-out. Only four were captured.  Two were hit and one, Andrew Newyear, later succumbed of his gunshot wound while receiving treatment at the City hospital. The other three Rawle Franklin, Hamza Samuels and Emanuel Hale were later remanded to prison. A few days later, police would make another major bust after carjackers struck again this time hijacking a Green Ice taxi driver of a Toyota Allion. He was hired by a man for a trip to the Timerhi Police Station on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD). It was late in the evening, but the victim didn’t mind because he thought the passenger was a Police Officer. As they were approaching Timehri, the passenger changed his destination to Dookie Road, Soesdyke and it was there where he was carjacked by the passenger and some other men .Detectives were able to crack the case quickly and recover the car before it was stripped. They were tipped off the following morning that a man at Soesdyke had a car bumper to sell and ranks decided to turn up at his house. Other car parts were found there and when he could not prove how he got them, police arrested him.

During the ensuing interrogation, he buckled and told cops about his carjacking gang’s operation. He led them to the backlands along the Soesdyke/Linden Highway, where they were able to recover the stolen Allion and several other shells of stolen cars. The police were quick to arrest two more suspects who were reportedly heading to the backlands to strip the Allion they had recovered. Investigations continued and two more suspects were nabbed and on August 26 last, all five of them, Jason Harry, an ex-cop and the alleged mastermind, Jomain Watson, 26, Toney Jerrick, 32, Standford Ford, 25 and Randy Fraser were all remanded to prison. Despite the recent arrests, two more cars were recently stolen -one on September 7 last and another silver-grey Premio on Wednesday. The one stolen on September 7 was found abandoned in Sophia with its battery missing. Police are currently investigating the most recent case that took place at Mon Repos, ECD. So far, investigators have obtained footage from a security camera, and it revealed that a lone car thief had committed the act.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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