Bandits hit Commerce House Cambio again
Accountant shot dead; proprietor critical
City Constabulary office riddled with bullets
By Miranda La Rose and Andre Haynes
It was a replay of July 14, 1999 for Commerce House Cambio on Regent Street yesterday morning, when armed bandits stormed the premises, firing shots and escaping with an undisclosed sum of money. But this time around, a worker’s life was snuffed out and the owner critically injured.
And just like in 1999, the City Constabulary office opposite came under heavy fire as the bandits, who used two white cars, made good their escape. The heist on that occasion was $13 million, but no one was able to estimate how much was taken yesterday.
Dead is Commerce House cashier/accountant Ramnauth Persaud also called ’Jack’ 44, of 80 New Road, Vreed-en- Hoop, West Coast Demerara. According to a release from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, Persaud was pronounced dead on arrival. He sustained two gunshot wounds to the “chest wall region of the heart.” Injured and in a city hospital is Kennard Gobin, the owner of the cambio at 93 Regent Street, Lacytown. The hospital’s release said that Gobin, who received multiple gunshot wounds, including one “to his heart,” was conscious on arrival at the hospital. He underwent emergency surgery. His daughter told this newspaper late yesterday that the surgery had been successful and her father’s condition was stable.
Cambio employee, Rudolph Ashby, popularly known as ‘Tiger’, was also treated for gunshot abrasions on his abdomen and sent away. Three members of the City Constabulary were also treated and sent away. Bullets grazed David Reid and Victor Sandy, while Troy Cadogan was treated for shock.
According to reports, yesterday’s robbery occurred at about 9:30 am and lasted for some ten minutes.
Ashby told Stabroek News that he had been sitting on a bench on the Regent Street pavement, where he usually sat as sentry as well as to advertise the business. No one “troubled me” so a robbery was far from his mind. On the occasion of the last robbery, Ashby had been manhandled and shot at by the robbers who had demanded that he turn over the keys to the cambio. That incident had occurred during the early morning hours and the money taken away was what should have been used for the day’s business.
Yesterday, Ashby said, he saw two white cars pull up to the curb and thought the occupants were policemen, as “one or two, or some of them wore bulletproof vests and helmets usually worn by some policemen. He saw two men enter the cambio, but thought nothing of it because they looked like they “going to do business.”
Some minutes later, however, he heard shots coming from the cambio, but by then it was too late to do anything because someone was holding him around the neck from behind, while another man fired a shot at him. The bullet grazed his stomach and he slid onto the pavement, scrambled and hid behind a car.
A security guard, whom in the vicinity, recalled seeing a man with his hands in his pockets and his head bowed going into the cambio shortly after the two cars had arrived. He thought that the man was a foreigner.
Another man followed him. Saturday mornings were usually busy and he felt that the men had gone there to do business until he heard the sound of gun shots coming from the cambio.
He could not provide any more information but Stabroek News understands that during the shooting, the armed guard hired by the cambio did not return fire nor was he even seen in the cambio. There was also no indication that anyone opened fire on the bandits.
City Mayor, Hamilton Green, who visited the cambio shortly after the robbery told this newspaper that the city constables attempted to pursue the bandits but the superior weapons of the bandits forced them back.
Personnel within the constabulary, reported that the shooting began at 09:25 am, at which time those in the offices took cover. Two ranks in the building were injured in the continuing fire, which subsided 11 minutes after it began.
The injured officers, Reid and Sandy, were taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), and were awaiting treatment when Stabroek News arrived at 1030 hrs. Reid reported that he had received an abrasion, to his inner left thigh, while Sandy said he received an abrasion to the left side of his forehead. Cadogan, another officer at the scene of the assault, was seeking treatment for shock.
Deputy Superintendent, Michael Van Newton, told Stabroek News, that had he been in his office, he would have surely been killed. He and other members of the constabulary were attending a meeting convened by the Chief Constable at the time the assault began. Facing Regent Street, his office was in the direct line of fire of the gunmen. The door, walls, windows and even the floor of his office, were riddled with bullet holes when he returned after the assault ended. Had he attempted to take cover in the office, he explained, it would have been to no avail.
The constabulary was similarly assaulted during the 1999 robbery on the same cambio. During that robbery, where armed bandits escaped with $13 million, several constabulary officers were fired on by the bandits.
A source within the constabulary said that the attack was obviously part of a well-thought-out plan, and the method of operation was similar to that of the July 1999 robbery at the cambio. He recalled that during that robbery, officers from the constabulary had fired back at the bandits.
He advanced the opinion that yesterday’s assault on the constabulary was to cripple the retaliatory capacity of the constabulary during the robbery.
A Commerce House Cambio employee, Roxanne Cornelius, who was present at the 1999 robbery, said that she heard gun shots outside before the bandits entered the cambio and told the other female employee, Michelle Hunte, to hide. They both hid under the counter, leaving Gobin and Persaud in the open.
Neither Hunte nor Cornelius could describe the bandits, but they both heard when Persaud and Gobin were shot.
Another employee, James Persaud, brother of the deceased accountant, told Stabroek News that he was in the toilet when he heard the shots and immediately bolted the door, locking himself in. He did not see what transpired, but when the shooting ceased and he emerged, it was to find his brother on the floor in a pool of blood and his boss injured. In the ensuing chaos, he was not sure who took them to the hospital and, none of the employees could have said which hospital they had been taken to.
When the news that ‘Jack’ Persaud had died broke, all of the staff burst into tears. By this time, too, some relatives of the employees had made their way to the office.
Persaud leaves to mourn his wife Vidyo aka ” Vedo’ and three children, Rabindranauth 15, Rajendranauth, 11, who is awaiting the results of the Secondary Schools Entrance Examinations (SSEE) and ten-year-old Veronica. They heard the news of their husband and father’s demise at home.
Persaud’s distraught widow told Stabroek News that he had only recently taken a bank loan to complete their home, which was under construction at Crane, West Coast Demerara. She said that he had been very hesitant about taking the loan.
She said that four years ago, her late husband had been working with cambio dealer Neville Saijoo who had been robbed and gunned down in America Street. He then took employment at Commerce House Cambio and was present when the bandits last struck there three years ago. When Stabroek News arrived on the scene some minutes after the robbery, there was much confusion as police tried keep curious onlookers from gaining entry to the premises. A large crowd venting their anger at the robbery/murder had gathered on Regent Street, prompting the police to throw up barriers and redirecting the traffic through other streets.
To add to the chaos, a police vehicle, which had arrived on the scene shortly after the robbery, had broken down on Regent Street and officers were attempting to repair it.
The police picked up several spent shells, which they said came from several types of high-powered weapons. A police source also said the execution and the manner in which the robbery was conducted was reminiscent of the Linden ‘Blackie’ London type of robbery and there were indications that it might be linked to the dare-devil approach of the February 23 prison escapees. A source within the constabulary also indicated that “two tall men, Troy Dick and Andrew Douglas,” took part is in the assault.
However, a release issued by the police in the wake of the robbery yesterday only said that the police were investigating the circumstances surrounding the robbery and had intensified security arrangements in and around the city and all leads were being followed in an effort to bring the criminals to justice.
Some two hours after the robbery, Stabroek News observed the police at a roadblock stopping vehicular traffic at the West Demerara end of the Demerara Harbour Bridge.
