Ryan Wharton, a former Research Assistant at Kaieteur News, is in police custody. He is alleged to be one of the perpetrators involved in the armed robbery at Kaieteur News in the wee hours on Monday.

Three News employees were robbed at gunpoint when masked bandits stormed the company’s Saffon Street, Georgetown location.

In addition to valuables from the employees, the gunmen who spent about five minutes in the building, broke into a locked drawer and escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash that was in a safe.

According to a police release, the incident occurred around 01:15 hrs., when three men in a gold-coloured Spacio motor car, registration number unknown, stormed the building through an eastern door on the bottom flat and held security guards Noel Junior, 63 and Joshua Junior, 35, and Wayne Little, a 20-year-old Graphic Designer, at gunpoint.

The three employees were taken to an office where they were instructed to lay on the ground.

Police said Noel was robbed of $5,000 cash, Little was robbed of a $44,000 cellphone and Joshua was robbed of a Samsung S7 cellular phone valued at $40,000.

One of the suspects remained with the victims while his accomplices went straight to the Accounts Department which is located on the upper flat of the building.

“The door was secured with a Yale padlock which was wrenched off by the suspects. The lock on one of the desk drawers inside the Accounts Department was also broken off. Under the said desk had a small safe with an undisclosed amount of cash which the suspects took. The suspects spent about five minutes in the building and exited through the front door and escaped in the said motor car in a southern direction,” the police release stated.

Police investigators have reviewed the company’s CCTV camera footage; however, due to the face masks that the suspects were wearing, it was difficult to identify the bandits.

The investigation is ongoing.

This is not the first attack on Kaieteur News. On the evening of August 8, 2006, five Kaieteur News pressmen were gunned down in cold blood at the newspaper’s printing press at Eccles, East Bank Demerara.

Chetram Persaud, Richard Stewart, Mark Maikoo and Shazeem Mohamed were shot at close range. Another worker, Wordsworth Grey, of 31 Norton Street, Bagotstown, East Bank Demerara, was shot dead shortly before the killers stormed the printery.

Senior pressman Ramchand Harripersaud and security guard Julian De Grace were the only survivors of the ‘bloodshed’.

In 2016, officers were summoned to the Saffon Street location following a report of a grenade attack.

Leroy Williams, Janeil Howard, and Alfie Garraway, were later charged over that incident. It is alleged that they conspired with other persons to cause an explosion by way of grenade, likely to endanger lives and cause damage to property, on June 4, 2016, at 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown.

They are currently awaiting trial at the High Court for the crime.