Interdicted soldier among two apprehended for La Jalousie robbery
The mini mart that was raided by the four bandits
An interdicted soldier was among two persons arrested yesterday, approximately one hour after four gunmen stormed a mini mart at Lot 26 La Jalousie, West Coast Demerara (WCD) and escaped with an undisclosed sum of cash, jewellery and phone cards.
The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) rank, who was interdicted from the force’s intelligence section two years ago, pending a murder probe, was taken into custody along with a second individual based on descriptions of the robbers.
The two men were intercepted in a minibus during a roadblock in the vicinity of Schoonard, West Bank Demerara (WBD) while heading to La Parfaite Harmonie. They were sitting next to each other.
Kaieteur News was reliably informed that ranks found $58,000 on one of the men. Up to press time, they were being questioned at the Leonora Police Station.
Rajmattie Panday, owner of the A & S Variety Store said that a little after midday, yesterday, a man (bandit) went into the store and asked to purchase cranberry juice.
“We normally close for lunch and this guy come in and asked for the cranberry juice. He was at the counter and my husband was outside with a guy, helping him put in a phone card in his phone,” Panday said.
She explained that before she could have handed the juice to the man, she noticed her husband walking into the shop with one of the bandits while the other two men rushed in from outside of the store.
The men were not masked and at least one of them was armed.
“My husband had just come from the doctor and before they harass him, I tell them that I will give them what they wanted,” the woman recounted.
She added that after they searched the store and packed whatever they wanted in garbage bags, one of the men took her upstairs where he disconnected the surveillance cameras and took away the DVR.
DVR (Digital Video Recorder) is the device that stores the images or the recordings for surveillance purposes. “They took the computer, laptop, phones and they cut the phone line for the land phone,” the store owner added.
The woman said that when she went back downstairs, the bandits had tied up her two children and husband.
She said that when the bags were filled, the men took it to a car that was waiting outside the store. She said that the entire ordeal lasted for about 15 minutes.
Immediately after they escaped, the police were notified and roadblocks were set up along the West Coast Demerara and on the western side of the Demerara Habour Bridge.