THREE persons are now in custody after an unknown number of persons broke into M. Ali and Son Supermarket at Strand, New Amsterdam between Sunday evening and Monday morning.In excess of $3M in cash is now missing and a fire which was set to the building has left more than $1M in damage. Reports are that when workers turned up at the supermarket yesterday morning and opened the building, thick smoke was seen inside.
It was later realised that the fire had already been extinguished. Further investigations revealed that a safe was hammered into and the weekend sales removed. According to Manager of the Supermarket, Sammy Ali, $3.3M were removed from the safe.
A section of the building was also set ablaze, and the entire room damaged. Several pieces of electrical equipment along with pieces of electronics, including computers totalling in excess of $1M were damaged by the fire. A source close to the New Amsterdam Fire Service said that the fire did not spread to other parts of the building because there was no oxygen available. It is believed this is so because the building is sealed. The guards were uaware of what transpired. This is the third time for the year that bandits had targeted this business. The Ali family owns two supermarkets and a gas station.