Dubraj Latchman, 58, of Good Faith, Mahaicony who was robbed by bandits around 4 pm on Monday told Stabroek News yesterday that this is the first time in 30 years that a robbery had occurred in broad daylight in the area.
The man said three neatly dressed bandits, armed with knives and a gun carted off close to $2M in cash and gold jewellery and escaped towards a coconut estate at Letter T with residents in hot pursuit.
The residents followed on foot and bicycles while carrying sticks and cutlasses. Even though one of the bandits pointed a gun at them they did not back off.
The bandits also eluded a team of black clothes police who arrived about one hour later from Georgetown and circled the area. The search was discontinued around 9 pm but the police continued to patrol the area all night.
Reliving his ordeal Latchman said he and his son Mahendra, his wife Somattie, her brother-in-law Michael and two small grandchildren were sitting in front of his grocery shop when a man entered and asked for a Topco juice.
He said he sold the man the juice and he left but returned three minutes later with two other persons. One of them pointed a gun at Michael, who was visiting from Port Mourant, Corentyne and said, “No noise.” They compelled him to take off his “fat” gold band from his hand and empty his pocket that had local and foreign currency.
They then ordered everyone to go into the shop and one of the bandits closed the door. They removed the proceeds of the day’s sales and other cash from a drawer.
One of the bandits, he said, pointed a gun at his son and told them to go upstairs but Latchman refused since he suffers from the effects of a stroke. A bandit remained downstairs with Latchman and continued to ransack other drawers and found more money. While the man was searching, the owner asked him, “Like you de work and put it here?”
He said the bandit got angry and drew a knife at him and said, “be quiet or I will kill you.”
Somattie told this newspaper that while they were upstairs the other two bandits asked where the money and the gold were and she told them to “search and take what they want.”
She recalled that one “ransacked the wardrobe and tell me to bring the f
