– No report yet from City Constabulary – Mayor Chase-Green

GEORGETOWN Mayor Patricia Chase-Green said that Chief Constable Andrew Foo has not yet submitted a report to her on the L. Seepersaud Maraj and Sons robbery.

While the jewellery store owners have expressed disappointment at the way the matter was handled by the Mayor and City Council (M&CC), Chase-Green made it clear she was abroad at the time of the incident.

However, upon returning to Guyana last Monday, she said she paid a visit to the owners on Tuesday. “They are one of our main vendors, and have been occupying the market in excess of 80 years,” she told reporters at her City Hall office on Wednesday.

“I have not seen the report from the Chief Constable as yet and until that is submitted to me, only then I can say what the regrettable issues were,” she said, adding, “On face value it’s regrettable that it did occur. And I need to see the report. I can only assume in my mind what I heard but that is my own personal opinion.”

Following the incident, police from the Major Crimes Unit probing the robbery visited the Section 4 Stall, 42-43 in the Stabroek Market.
In a statement, the jewellery store owners have appealed to the public for assistance in capturing the perpetrators.

Some days after, three characters known to the police were charged for the crime.

The men, Albert DeFreitas, 54, of Leopold Street, Georgetown; Treon Parks, 31, of Eccles, East Bank Demerara and Clifford Rodney, 66, of One Mile, Linden, appeared before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan.

The charge reads that between July 2, 2018 and July 3, 2018 at the Stabroek Market, the men broke and entered the jewellery store of L. Seepersaud Maraj and stole a quantity of gold and diamond jewellery valued at $22M.

Police Inspector Neville Jeffers, prosecuting, told the court that Rodney had confessed to using a blow-torch to open the vault door of the jewellery establishment, while DeFreitas told officers that he assisted Rodney in carrying out the heist.

The magistrate remanded the trio to prison until July 23 when the matter will be called again.

“It is true that the police recovered tools which included blow torches and other chemicals used. The vault had three doors and each door was cut with precision. It is sufficient to say that the perpetrators of this crime aren’t novices, but highly skilled thieves,” the store owners had said following the incident.
They noted that they have consulted with several security specialists and others trained in ironwork and welding, and had been informed that it would have taken no less than five hours for the vaults to be cut open.

“We have spoken directly to two city Constables who claimed that checks were done earlier in the market but nothing was discovered. As stall owners operating under market rules, we have no choice but to depend on the City Constabulary for security whenever the market is closed,” they said.

The store owners said, too, that the stall was secured with an alarm system that was being monitored by the MMC Security Force. “We contacted the MMC Security Force…and we were informed that the alarm was indeed set off three times…MMC never informed us or the police that the alarms went off.”

“On every other occasion, whenever the alarm is set off, MMC would call us immediately and the fact that we never received any calls or reports from them is puzzling,” the store said.