CITIZENS are expressing grave concerns about their safety and security in light of a new development unfolding, wherein bandits are donning outfits that pass them off as members of the Guyana Police Force, thereby facilitating their committing armed robbery on unsuspecting members of the public.At about 21:00 hrs on March 19, 2015, at Grove, Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara, three men dressed in police uniform flagged down a canter vehicle with a driver and two porters of the Royal Chicken entity, a business operating at Garden of Eden, EBD, and relieved them of an undisclosed sum of cash. The armed robbery took place at a very dismal area.

The workers were heading to their place of work when they encountered the men dressed in police uniforms. They were taken to a dam, where the robbers tied them up, broke into a canister, and departed with the day’s sales.

The employees were left tied up in the locked tray of the truck; but, after some time, they managed to free themselves and report the crime to the police.

Crime Chief Leslie James yesterday said a probe has been launched to verify the identity of the robbers.

Following the incident, the police in ‘C’ Division held a closed door meeting with Commander Christopher Griffith and sub-divisional officers to iron out a clear format for police to use in conducting road block exercises on the East Coast corridor, among other things.

On August 2, 2014, at about 11hrs, two bandits posing as cops stopped a vehicle in which Lekraj Gopaul of Hague, West Coast Demerara; his wife, private school teacher Latchmin Gopaul; and taxi driver Parmanand Teekaram of Cornelia Ida, WCD were travelling, and eventually relieved them of local and foreign currencies, and jewellery and cell phones they had in their possession.

The trio was on their way to the airport to go on vacation overseas.

This brazen act of banditry occurred in the vicinity of Land of Canaan, East Bank Demerara; and after the bandits had identified themselves as policemen investigating an accident, they took their victims to a dismal area at Soesdyke, EBD, where they tied up and robbed them of cash and jewellery amounting to millions.

A week before that incident, Pastor Sewnauth Poonalall of the Good Hope Missionary Baptist Church was gun-butted and robbed shortly after returning from the airport with some overseas guests.
(Michel Outridge)