Gunmen yesterday invaded the Guy-America Enterprise at Ruimveldt and stole the $860,000 staff payroll.
Sandy Gobin, supervisor of the 165 Mandela Avenue machinery dealership and furniture store, said that the men launched the attack around 9:45am. She was on the phone with a member of staff at the time. “…Two boys come pon a bicycle right at the door by the desk and say give me the money. So, I seh, ‘Wah kind money? We ain’t got no money.’ And he say, ‘Give me the money or else me shoot ya,’” the still visibly-shaken up woman told Stabroek News.
Gobin noted that only two other employees were in the store at the time and they were ordered not to move. “They had a girl went stand up at the back and they tell she don’t move and it had a next worker sit down on a chair and they tell he don’t move. They had a next boy is work here, he ain’t went nowhere around. He say he went in the washroom,” she recalled.
According to Gobin, while one of the men firmly held a gun to her head, the other made his way to the desk drawer and pulled out a bag which contained only a few pieces of garments. However, he also took a bag she had been wearing on her shoulder. That bag carried the cash. “They just pull the drawer… One go in the drawer while the other one had the gun to my head. They took the bag from me, which had $860,000 and the bag from the drawer,” she explained.
Gobin said she was preparing to go and conduct business when the men confronted her. When this newspaper visited, police ranks were present in the office and were said to be viewing footage from the surveillance cameras. Stabroek News was told that picking up the images were difficult since the men wore caps.
Crime Chief Seelall Persaud told this newspaper that the stolen money was intended to pay staff’s salaries. He noted that no one has been arrested in connection with the robbery.
Persaud, meanwhile, noted that bicycles are becoming a very popular mode of escape during robberies.
