BUSINESSMAN Vinod Hithlall was robbed of $10M in jewellery from his pawn shop yesterday afternoon by three bandits, one of whom was armed with a gun.
The owner of One Love Worthy Cause Pawn Shop, at 10 Vigilance Public Road, East Coast Demerara, told the Guyana Chronicle that he suspects that the robbery is a ‘set-up’, because only last week he had been paid in US currency for some jewellery a customer had ordered.
He explained that the customer made a deposit of some money in US currency. He became suspicious, decided to check the money, and it turned out to be counterfeit.
He locked the man in his building until police from the Vigilance Station came and took him away.
The man is still at the station, and Hithlall understands that he has a cell phone with him.

The man added that he has been running the pawn shop for sometime now, and he was never robbed before.

One of his two employees, Ruth Spencer, told the Guyana Chronicle yesterday that it was about 8:00hrs when she showed up for work. She opened the place for business and was counting some money when a male customer walked in.
Spencer added that the young man asked if they had $1000 phone cards and she said that they had only $200 cards. The man left.
A few minutes later, as she was still counting money, while another employee, Samantha Hithlall, was at the desk, she got up to tend to another young man at the counter. He asked if he needed an ID card to do business and she said yes. He then pulled a handgun and placed it to her head, demanding she open the door under the counter, Spencer said.
Spencer added that the gunman told Samantha Hithlall not to mover or he would shoot her”. His accomplice wrenched open the door to the showcase and removed the jewellery from it.
Spencer said the money she was counting amounted to $100,000 and he took that too’ demanding more; and when she told him there was no more, he hit her in the head with the gun.
She then took him to a drawer which had $4, 500 in cash, and they hurriedly left after relieving Samantha Hithlall of three gold rings and a pair of gold earrings she was wearing.
Spencer said a third bandit was standing outside during the ordeal, and they ran off through a nearby alleyway and disappeared.
Vinod Hithlall said that after the men had fled, his daughter, Samantha, started screaming that there was a robbery and he was alerted and ran upstairs to get his licensed firearm before chasing after the bandits in his vehicle. But they had vanished.
Ranks from the Vigilance Police Station arrived on the scene about 15 minutes later.