Fuel markers stolen from the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA)’s Quamina Street headquarters during an armed robbery in September were yesterday found at a Ruimveldt fish processing plant and two men were up to late last evening being questioned by police.
Stabroek News has been reliably informed that a worker accidently leaked information that sent a team of police officers and GEA officials to Singh’s Fisheries plant located behind the Ruimveldt Police Station.
Police in a brief press release said that “resulting from diligent investigations” at around 1500 hours, the team conducted a search on the premises of a fish plant and found the markers. The release said that two men are in police custody but did not state where they were arrested or if they were employees of the plant.
GEA head Mahender Sharma, when contacted, said that he had nothing to say on the matter at the time.
When this newspaper arrived at the location, which is sandwiched by the police station and the Force’s Marine section, it appeared closed and was being manned by a loan security guard.
The area where the plant is located at one time belonged to the government. The plant has been operating at that very spot for several years now.
Stabroek was unable to reach the owner of the plant for a comment. “I ain’t been at the back here when the police come,” a man, who declined to identify himself, said last evening. “But when I come I get de lowdown from dem boys that been here.”
Police, according to him, showed up at the plant some time before 3pm. They informed persons there that they had received information and would need to search the place. “I na know if they had a search warrant or if was a raid or something they de doing,” the man said. “All I hear is that dem barge in the place and start searching.”
The man explained that Singh’s Fisheries did not have an electricity connection. The company, according to him, generated its own power. Another man said that he saw a few policemen while pointing at Singh’s wharf and there was a grey truck there.
The police were placing “things” into it.
He said he wasn’t sure what the things were because they were wrapped.
Around 3 am, on September 30, four masked gunmen stormed the GEA’s Quamina Street offices and after tying up two female guards, escaped with containers of fuel markers.
Police reviewed the footage from security cameras to help track down the perpetrators but according to reports the images were blurred. The GEA had said in a statement that the gunmen entered the compound and subdued the guards with handguns.
They then cut the locks on one of four 20 feet containers in the compound and later left with “two cans of the domestic marker concentrate used to mark fuel.” Following the theft, the composition of fuel marker concentrate was been modified to detect any unauthorized use.
