FOR a number of years, there has been a peculiar type of criminality that ha

s been occurring fairly often – that of  armed  bandits intercepting vehicles conveying persons, with large amounts of money, withdrawn from  commercial banks; or being  taken from  business places and private homes,to these financial  institutions.
It is the kind of robbery that is said to take place with  inside information. Thus, in common Guyanese parlance, it is called a “set up”.
Recently, one of these alluded-to types of robberies took place in the Kingston area, with deadly results. Not only were the robbers successful in snatching a reported Gy$8M, but in the process, a  septuagenarian in the ambushed vehicle,  was shot dead; while the business owner, another similarly aged person was wounded and had to seek medical treatment.
Apart from this type of robbery becoming  routine, they are  frequently carried out in the city and its environs; but there have also been a few cases in the Region 6 area.
Apart from this observation, they all involved persons from privately owned businesses, and most revealing,the persons who are entrusted with the usually large sums are not accompanied by any armed escort service.
If this is not downright playing bravado and  tempting fate, then it is  carelessness, negligence and,  above all, cheapness. The sad fact of these incidents is that they are a constant in the criminal calendar, which is common knowledge. This alone ought to inform business owners that enhanced security measures are necessary, not only for their physical places of commerce, but particularly when it comes to the very important operation of transporting  sums of money to banking houses.
One stands corrected in recalling a robbery many years ago, immediately outside of a downtown commercial bank. The security  guard at that bank lost his life when he attempted to offer assistance to  persons who came under attack as they alighted from a vehicle that conveyed them to transact business at the said bank. Had those persons been accompanied by  an armed escort, that guard may still have been alive.
Business owners must understand that there  is always a   clear possibility that every time  they are going to transport any sum of finance to banks,  that   a robbery is a definite possibility. Further, when business owners and/or their staff personally  undertake the  risky mission  and responsibility of ‘conveyor’, once there is the absence of a properly armed escort service  – lives are in imminent peril from prospects of a robbery.
These owners must also consider the important fact that staff who  are sent on these banking errands are  mostly breadwinners for their families, whose dependants suffer deprivation when  the former are  removed tragically.
Saving a  few dollars by not providing for a proper security escort cannot compensate for the loss of a staff while undertaking such a business assignment.
Do not  squeeze  on the dollars, and expose  the human life to risk!