SWIFT action by the B-3 Division, Corentyne, Berbice Community Policing Group (CPG) members and ranks of the Police Force on Monday night, following the armed robbery of a rice farmer at No. 56 Village, led to the arrest of four of the five men who reportedly carted off the man’s licensed firearm, jewellery and cash.

Radica Ramanandan, the liaison officer, told this publication that she was a part of the CPG mobile patrol policing the community when they received information about the armed robbery of the rice farmer and summoned the police.

She explained that she received word that the bandits were hiding out in an abandoned house at No. 55 Village and they descended on them and arrested four men who were in the building.

Ramanandan added that the arrest took place at about 23:00hrs on Monday, hours after the family was robbed.

She reported that about 21:00hrs, five masked men armed with guns and a cutlass entered the home of Jaisha and Chunmattie Boadnaraine and terrorised them. They also dealt the woman a chop to her knee after a beating.

The couple was beaten, tied up and placed in their bathroom in the house while the men escaped with jewellery, more than $900,000 in cash which was the proceeds from a horse racing business the couple spearheaded, and a licensed shotgun.

According to reports, one of the four men in police custody told sleuths that he is from Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara, while the others are from Georgetown and they are the group who had been robbing unsuspecting residents of Corentyne, Berbice for some time now.

(Michel Outridge)